Notes - thought in a black hole / near-miss / (final) Chapter 14

         Late morning. You just awoke from your nap. Jadah is curled in a pillow in the sun under the bedroom window.

         1026 hours. I have nothing to say Amorella. I thought maybe you did.

         Almost noon and you still have your exercises to do. - Amorella

         1254 hours. Forty minutes of exercises completed. I should feel better but I don’t, at least not physically, but I did do them so I do feel better about that. Doug sent me a great article. “Dark Matter Might Be Hiding In Microscopic Black Holes, Astrophysicists Say” from Space-dot-com by Katia Moskvitch. There is one paragraph that is just awesome which I am going to copy because it might find a fit in the way things are in the Merlyn fictions. (As this is a working blog I would hope that as ‘notes’ this is not a copyright infringement.)

** **

Enigmatic 'friedmons'

The new study by Dokuchaev and Eorshenko suggests a specific type of quantum black hole might exist: so-called black hole atoms. These microscopic black holes would originally have had an electric charge, the researchers say. This charge would have attracted protons or electrons, leaving the tiny black hole electrically neutral, just like an atom.

The idea is partly based on the "friedmon theory" proposed in the 1970s by prominent Russian physicist Moisei Markov, and Valeri Frolov of the University of Alberta in Canada.

A friedmon is a mathematical solution of the Einstein field equations, which are key constituents of the theory of general relativity. To an external observer, a friedmon looks like a micro blackhole with an electric charge the same as that of the electron.

However, the friedmon's interior can be macroscopically large — up to the size of the known universe, Frolov, who was not involved in the new study, told Space.com.

And a friedmon with an electron moving around it is similar to an atom, he added.

Markov and Frolov never made the link between the friedmon and dark matter. But Dokuchaev says that such neutral black hole atoms should have the same properties that dark matter is thought to possess.

The black holes would have about the same mass as an asteroid, from 10^14 kilograms to 10^23 kilograms, but be even smaller than atoms. Their interaction with ordinary matter would also be extremely weak — even weaker than that of neutrinos, the researchers said.

The quantum black holes would therefore be dark, massive, non-interacting particles – with properties that “"one needs for the dark matter candidates,”" write Dokuchaev and Eroshenko write in a paper published in March in the journal Advances in High Energy Physics.

Selected from - “Dark Matter Might Be Hiding In Microscopic Black Holes, Astrophysicists Say” from Space-dot-com by Katia Moskvitch.

** **

         1307 hours. I don’t remember ever reading of this (in bold above) before. It does remind me of the short story – I cannot recollect the name or author – where a fellow accidently makes a dimensional box (it fell into itself) with a hole in it, he looks in and sees a little earth. Eventually he goes mad (I think) and shoves a needle or something into the box and a few days later the real world is terrified to see this needle or sword coming into the atmosphere and it appears to be that this is the end of the world. It is a great fun story and I used to tell my students about it most every year. I think it was written in the 1960’s because my teaching comrade Vladimir R. (head of the math department) at Escola Graduada (1970-72) told me about it originally. Here’s what I wonder, ‘what would happen to a thought sucked into a microscopic black hole’?  Now, to me, this is something worth thinking about.

         You will probably have lunch shortly. Post. Later, dude. - Amorella

         You are home from Carol’s walk in the park, a late lunch at Penn Station and errands. You have two segments of chapter fourteen completed and you were taking a break checking emails and found this:

** **

Carrington-class CME Narrowly Misses Earth


May 2, 2014: Last month (April 8-11), scientists, government officials, emergency planners and others converged on Boulder, Colorado, for NOAA's Space Weather Workshop—an annual gathering to discuss the perils and probabilities of solar storms. 

The current solar cycle is weaker than usual, so you might expect a correspondingly low-key meeting.  On the contrary, the halls and meeting rooms were abuzz with excitement about an intense solar storm that narrowly missed Earth.

"If it had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces," says Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado, who presented a talk entitled The Major Solar Eruptive Event in July 2012: Defining Extreme Space Weather Scenarios.  

The close shave happened almost two years ago. On July 23, 2012, a plasma cloud or "CME" rocketed away from the sun as fast as 3000 km/s, more than four times faster than a typical eruption. The storm tore through Earth orbit, but fortunately Earth wasn't there. Instead it hit the STEREO-A spacecraft. Researchers have been analyzing the data ever since, and they have concluded that the storm was one of the strongest in recorded history. "It might have been stronger than the Carrington Event itself," says Baker.

The Carrington Event of Sept. 1859 was a series of powerful CMEs that hit Earth head-on, sparking Northern Lights as far south as Tahiti. Intense geomagnetic storms caused global telegraph lines to spark, setting fire to some telegraph offices and disabling the 'Victorian Internet." A similar storm today could have a catastrophic effect on modern power grids and telecommunication networks. According to a study by the National Academy of Sciences, the total economic impact could exceed $2 trillion or 20 times greater than the costs of a Hurricane Katrina. Multi-ton transformers fried by such a storm could take years to repair and impact national security.

A recent paper in Nature Communications authored by UC Berkeley space physicist Janet G. Luhmann and former postdoc Ying D. Liu describes what gave the July 2012 storm Carrington-like potency. For one thing, the CME was actually two CMEs separated by only 10 to 15 minutes. This double storm cloud traveled through a region of space that had been cleared out by another CME only four days earlier. As a result, the CMEs were not decelerated as much as usual by their transit through the interplanetary medium.

Had the eruption occurred just one week earlier, the blast site would have been facing Earth, rather than off to the side, so it was a relatively narrow escape.

When the Carrington Event enveloped Earth in the 19th century, technologies of the day were hardly sensitive to electromagnetic disturbances.  Modern society, on the other hand, is deeply dependent on sun-sensitive technologies such as GPS, satellite communications and the internet.

"The effect of such a storm on our modern technologies would be tremendous," says Luhmann.

During informal discussions at the workshop, Nat Gopalswamy of the Goddard Space Flight Center noted that "without NASA's STEREO probes, we might never have known the severity of the 2012 superstorm.  This shows the value of having 'space weather buoys' located all around the sun."

It also highlights the potency of the sun even during so-called "quiet times." Many observers have noted that the current solar cycle is weak, perhaps the weakest in 100 years. Clearly, even a weak solar cycle can produce a very strong storm.

Says Baker, "We need to be prepared."

Credits:

Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

** **

         1654 hours. We are fortunate and didn’t know it.

         Post. - Amorella    

        2320 hours. I have completed the chapter. It took me longer than I thought it would.

        That is because you reworked some things. Add and post. – Amorella

***

Chapter 14 (final) ©

Contnuity

The Supervisor has a little saying:

                                    Ring-a-ring o'rosies

                                    A pocket full of posies                                   

                                    "A-tishoo! A-tishoo!"

                                    We all fall down!

                                    We rise from clay

                                    On Judgment Day

                                    Be we dead or still alive.

            I, Merlyn, have this little ditty above memorized to the point it sets stemmed in letters out of which each four-leafed chapter dreams grow to clover size. I knead the dreams into a word stream of music for the heart and soul and mind with hope that when read, these stories cast a light into those living with an imagination that casts no shadow.

The Dead 14

            Merlyn lay on his bed in his hut encapsulated in private spiritual environs of heartansoulanmind and grumbles, "I am no more a princely pebble than the commonest of headstones." This questioning place within is no different, than when I was alive. Once in life a young druidess came to my lean-to shelter deep in the oak forest and said, "I am searching for wisdom while attempting to define love. I was told to seek you out, thus here I am."

            I remember smiling, mostly in surprise. I say, "What is your name child?"

            As clear as a mountain stream, she politely and melodiously replied, "Vivian. My name is Vivian."

            In a forest of hard wooded honesty I say, "Why did you repeat your name just now? Are you not sure who you are? I state directly to her clearly green-rimmed dark pupils, "You have to define yourself, Vivian, before you can define either wisdom or love." How I remember those young dark Celtic eyes. That was so long ago but her innocent youth is still here.

*

            Such is a memory, but what does it mean for a human being not to be innocent? Why is Mother Nature innocent? Why are the lesser animals innocent and why are we humans considered corrupt?

            Attempting to maneuver the future for our own betterment, is that innocence? That's what these two rebellions of the Dead were about. We Dead lost the first Rebellion and we Dead won the second. Physically surviving life is not innocent not matter what the age. None of we Dead are so innocent, yet we survive in spiritual form. Why? We continue whether we wish it or not. We make do even now in this HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither. Even when we appear to sleep in stone it is only a dream, a wishful thought of being solid again. What a strange thing it is to have continuity within Nothing or Neither. For millenniums people were anxious about what happens after death; now, we are still anxious because nothing happens unless we decide to direct it.

*

            A voice whispered from the corner of the roof down to the earth-like floor beneath his bed. "Hello, Merlyn. I can't sleep either. Do you want some company?"

            "Is this Brighid, daughter of The Dagda?" She was once considered a Celtic goddess, thinks Merlyn.

            "No, this is Brigit, who was once your love, Merlyn."

            "Before Vivian."

            "And after, Merlyn."

            Love does not go away among the Dead, remembers Merlyn. Love does not run nor does it linger. Love is a moment never completely lost thus it has no right to recovery. Love is always surrounded by innocence.

            "I read your thoughts, Merlyn," whispered Brigit. They are always lined in kindness to me.

            "You could always read me. I think that is the reason we parted in life."

            "Only physically, Merlyn, and Here we are together."

            "How is this that we remain true to friends and lovers in this place?" He feels her right arm touching his back as he lay on his right side.

            "I am forming as are you."

            "Wishful thinking," murmurs Merlyn as if he were half asleep.

            "Just as in life, my love. People are married to wishful thinking."

            "In life people are married too many are married to the thought," responds Merlyn and suddenly felt his patience growing and his back and her arm disappear into the night.

*

            Merlyn turns, opened his eyes and sees the empty wall with no roof above. He blinks, views the stars above and concludes, such is the lot of we who are Dead. And, in a moment Merlyn lies fully as such, a sarcophagus, a human spirit entombed without time until Vivian’s once living voice flares in the sluggish darkness:

                        “I am Priestess -- Guardian of the Great wheel.

                                    My blood flows in rhythm with the white of the moon.

                                                I hug the Oak bark hard and kiss the bright sun to yellow.

                        Slowly. Apollo ignites me, and I conjure hot with wild timeless winds

                                    Blowing among ancient marble – tall stately columns

                                                Rising solid above our grassy Mother on this and other worlds.

                        I am invisible to all those who are outside my head,

                                    I am boundless reality beyond the walls of the known universe.

                                                I am Priestess -- Guardian of the Great Wheel, I am Vivian of the Lake.

*

            Jarred to half awake, dead Merlyn replies half of two thoughts -- Can memory alone be an enchantment? Is love alone endless? Where do we Dead go to find such answers?

The Brothers

            It is an early morning in late August and Orion is up in the southeastern sky. By afternoon high school and college football and band practices have begun in Riverton. While Richard thinks on why the New Year doesn’t begin in September like it should, Robert sits beside him on the back deck looking off into the clump of trees on the back of his corner lot at Main and West Streets.

            “I like the trees,” says Robert. “A couple in the middle are already turning.”

            Richard smiles contentedly, “Buckeyes, no doubt."

            “I’ve new a poem in hand.”

            Ignoring the statement Richard asks, “You started reading my book yet?"

            "I finished the first chapter.”

            “What do you think?” asked Richard unenthusiastically.

            “In the book, who is Grandma Earth exactly?”

            “She . . . I’m not sure exactly. She introduces the stories,” says Richard.

            “Is she Mother Nature? That’s what I thought at first, but your side notes say she is the black actress in Gone With The Wind.”

            “Hattie McDaniel. That's right, I mentally modeled the character of Grandma after her. I didn't know it was a margin note.”

            “It is a draft, Richie.” Robert glances at the browned grass of their late summer yard thinking he should have watered it more like Connie had suggested. He asks, “Whatever happened to Hattie McDaniel?”

            “I don’t know. Her caring portrayal in the film is what I wanted to express.”

            Robert declares, “Grandma as Mother Nature doesn’t give a damn. Look at all the natural disasters. Millions of people killed.”

            “She’s indifferent, just like we are.”

            “Speak for yourself, Richie.”

            “She’s indifferent just as I am. I made her up. What else would you expect her to be besides myself?”

            “But, you once told me Grandma is modeled on the commercial face of Aunt Jemima."

            “People know about Aunt Jemima. She is still on the box, Richard pauses and shuffled in his chair, “Well, she’s new and updated today. Most readers wouldn’t know the name Hattie McDaniel, and I didn’t know how to reference Gone With The Wind in context with Aunt Jemima.”

            “Aunt Jemima’s supposed to be a cook too isn’t she?”

            “I don’t remember,” replies Richard in a ruffled tone.

            Robert lazily speaks, “The first chapter is still a bit unorthodox, just like in the Braided Dream book, but I realize you are writing for a very limited audience.”

Suddenly, Richard asks, “Do you want to fly out to Vegas again this fall or wait until spring?”

"The last time the four of us went to Vegas you spent most of our last free day playing nickel slots Richie.”

“That's because early on I lost a hundred dollars playing quarter slots. It isn’t nearly as much fun as nickel slots." Richard hesitates, "Where are Cyndi and Connie?"

“We’re coming!” shouts Connie. “We’ve whipped up a special treat.” 

Upon coming into the room Cyndi asks, “What have you two been talking about?"

"I hope it's double chocolate and caramel brownies," replies Richard.

           

"We made a fruit bowl," smiles Cyndi. "It's a lot healthier than brownies."

"But not nearly as good," replies Robert. With a hint of irritation the brothers laughed.

The girls sat somber-like for a moment.  Connie notes, "You two should be more health-minded." Then, seemingly out of the blue, Connie comments, "I'm not going to Vegas again unless we rent a car and drive to the Grand Canyon or one of the other national parks."

Cyndi adds, "Richie you lost over two hundred dollars playing those dumb quarter slots."

"I thought you lost a hundred," says Robert.

"Why did you tell him that Richie?"

"I figured it out," says Cyndi happily, "when he started playing the nickel slots."

Robert pipes in with a poker face, "Jeez, Richie, you should be more honest.”

"Richie's better at fiction," snaps Cyndi. "Isn't that right, Connie."

"Not always. Why, again, I did I marry you Rob, and not Richie? Seems to me you had a pretty good line," giggled Connie.

"Better than my brother's," intimates Robert coyly.

The four sit in a comfortable silence, each with a small known family smile relaxing on their faces. Finally, Connie speaks just above a whisper, "We each know who each is and who the other is not."

Uncharacteristically, Robert breaks into the laughter first. The others follow suit. Robert puts the card table and opens it on the deck. Richard brings out the chairs. Connie pulls the deck of cards from the top right kitchen drawer. Cyndi put the fruit bowl away and grabs some beer from the kitchen. Connie picks up snacks. The rest of the afternoon at the corner house is a replay remembrance of youth and fun and games.

Grandma’s Story 14

            I, Grandma, am standing on a ridged Chinese mountain summit about five thousand feet high and a bit above an austere stone shelter where three people are spending their summer. This is a love story of sorts. Shushu is a rather pleasant young woman from one tribe who usually gets her own way. Her love is Ch’ang who is from an adjoining tribe. Her great aunt, Lili, shaman of both local tribes, is also on the summit. The stone hut is Lili’s for the summer months, and she invited Shushu and Ch’ang. Lili knows this private love story of Shushu and Ch’ang of a different level. Here is Lili to tell to you this story.

*

            Shushu loves Ch’ang and she though can do something about this love she chooses to do nothing. Likewise, Ch’ang chooses to do nothing. Together the two become as a single room, like this shelter where Grandma and I, Lili, presently stand. To help show the two their separate individual personalities I have Shushu become a centered doorframe in the West wall while Ch’ang becomes a door frame centered in the East wall. Two thousand feet above the river, love, by its own initiative attempts to construct a bridge between the two door frames. Meanwhile, the river some two thousand feet below, runs from West to East. Love is a condition, it cannot build the bridge high or low between the two stubbornly individual friends. This is my story to them. Hearts build bridges, not love.

            The walls of this stone shelter, the West wall and the East wall, are the strong rigidity in the would be lovers unconscious hearts. The centered door frames are the exacting souls of both Shushu and Ch’ang, but they do not know this while they are alive. Lili takes a moment to smile warmly then she unexpectedly transports herself to the center of the stone shelter where in her tranced line of sight she can see through the two opposite door frames at once. In life one cannot see through both door frames at once due to the Nature of Things, but I am an ever-dancing shaman. I dance the center line of the two common souls connecting these two stubbornly independent hearts of Shushu and Ch’ang.

            Each doorway is a green Dragon of Plenty and Bounty. Each soul-framed doorway is equal. Each doorway and door frame is invisible in the Nature of Things. Each wall is invisible in the Nature of Things. I, Lili am also invisible in the Nature of Things. Grandma Earth is visible in the Nature of Things but soul lines are not.

*

            This is what I, Lili, thought those many years ago and this is what I think today. I made my embroidery that summer in life. In it I am the centered small red dot. Shushu is the West dragon facing me. Ch’ang is the East dragon facing me. When a living human being stares at the red dot long enough she or he sees not a red dot, but the tip of the tail of me, Lili, the Red Dragon. It is then that their souls, the mirror image twin dragons, Shushu and Ch’ang, form into one dragon. Shushu and Ch’ang as walls become an illusion. Their separate hearts and souls become one. The door frames are seen, felt, experienced. There never were any doors or walls either for that matter. True shelters cannot be measured.

*

Grandma carefully steps down off the stone walled shelter where a heart and soul line connect. She begins a little mountain jig. For in time and not, Grandma’s old black feet move into a river dance. Standing straight and tall those black feet dance. Grandma’s black arms and hands stay ridged on her hips as Grandma sings above the dancing feet, “I move in human feet stomping. I dance in Nature seen and unseen.” With that, Grandma jumps to the river below where Lili re-appears. Both dance together one in the other.

River dancing with Grandma in the Sorcerer’s dreams

Have a past and a future, without the difference.

Words dancing in stories with schematics in themes

Of balance and cadence and conscience and prudence.

Diplomatic Pouch 14

            Yermey says, ”And, this is my room Pyl, looks pretty much like all the others."

            Pyl says, ”This is all very standard and orthodox. Like I mentioned in the other living quarters, everything is built in either in floor, walls or ceiling. There is no need for a chair if you are not sitting."

            "Right, you did mention that earlier, but then the other rooms had furniture on display."

            Maintaining a poker face, Yermey adds, "I did not realize I was going to be showing you my apartment."

            "The other two apartments were for the women. I thought yours might be more unique," she teases.

            Yermey responds, "You mean more masculine like a den?”

            "A quick question. Are you all professional or are you also friends?" asks Pyl.

            "Pardon?"

            "How long did it take you to get here? Even with faster than light generators it would take years. What do you people do on route? Can you pull up a chair? I would like to sit." The chair expanded from the wall next to her. Pyl asks, ”That was fast, what did you do?"

            "You requested the chair so here it is. Sit. Please,” answers Ship.

            "Ship understands my English?"

            Another chair, silently rises from the floor. Yermey sits facing Pyl. "Ship knows everything about you, Mrs. Burroughs."

            "Oh."

            Yermey explains matter-of-factly, "Ship knows everything about each of us for our own protection; that is, for our own safety. He is built to save our lives under any circumstance."

            Perplexed, she wonders aloud, "If he could only save one of our lives, whose would he save?"

            "You ask a lot of questions." Yermey says, "Ship how would you handle this hypothetical dilemma?"

            Ship answers directly, "I would save your life, Dr. Burroughs. It would only be polite as you are a guest of ThreePlanets while you are on board."

            Pyl is immediately taken back. Ship said, guest with a sincere authenticity I would not have expected from a fellow human I had just met. Without hesitation she looks eye-to-eye at Yermeyy, "Who are you people that would give so much authority and polite moral fiber to a machine?"

             Yermey responds with a slight smile but says nothing.

            Pyl gathers herself, "Ship sounds so human; he strikes a cord in my own humanity."

            "Good. I mean this is completely unexpected,” replies Yermey in a warmer voice than he intends. “We don't really know one another. You are connecting with Ship in a human-like way . . . You are bonding with Ship first. Isn’t this interesting?”

            Pyl catches the twinkle in his older eyes while thinking, I see a blemish of modesty and humility in this arrogant man.

            Ship speaks, "Yermey, give Dr. Burroughs a glass of water, and tell her about how your species was not always so fortunate as it is today."

            "Yes, of course. I'll have water myself. Earth water, how's that Dr. Burroughs, a cool glass of Earth water." The glasses of cool water appeared from an opening slot on the wall. Two small tables rise from the floor near the chairs to set the glasses on. The chairs fluff and soften from within.

            Pyl takes a sip and watches Yermey's eyes and body language. His formality quickly fades and she senses his emotionally driven skin speak silently.           

            Yermey begins, ”Twenty-one thousand years ago we were similar to Earthlings in the mid-twentieth century. We lived on a singular planet in five mostly separate, climate driven cultures. A great incurable plague arose and out of necessity ten ships were built to take two hundred people to the two nearly uninhabited but for science centers nearby close  planets. This exercise was done in secret. Planet One was left to survive or die from this incurable plague."

            "Science later determined that exactly one hundred people had survived the plague." Yermey raised the forefinger on his right hand, "Exactly one hundred."

            "We continued our science and technology but our economic focus became the survival of our children. We reverse engineered our society to always enrich our children first. We serve our children and in turn as we grow older, our children serve us. We were and are one family on ThreePlanets. What you call government we call Family Services. We mean the term literally. Everyone is marsupial humanoid, our species is a close family and we serve one another. No exceptions.”

            How naive, thinks Pyl Burroughs. Unconsciously she is struck by his uncommon sincerity and his truly innocent sounding culture that at first she finds herself without voice. Humanity and fear rise within. She thinks directly, ‘If these people have no weapons as they say, they need to leave our planet immediately. If they stay these poor people, these innocent aliens will be eaten alive one way or another.’

***