The Pythagoreans

We are all probably familiar with Pythagoras of Samos from high school geometry class and while reading this weekend, I became aware of a society that he belonged to called the Pythagoreans. Little is known about th is group, except that it was started by Pythagoras and they were students of mathematics and strongly believed that "Everything is a Number". The Pythagoreans spent much of their time trying to uncover numbers that were hidden in everything from music to planetary orbits, and the natural world. Pythagoras's theorem on right angles forms a cornerstone of the structure of the three dimensional world we live in. I just had a geometry flashback!

The Pythagoreans were interested in this notion of a perfect number. A perfect number is one in which all the factors of a number add up to that number. For example the factors of the number '6' are '1', '2', and '3'. If you add up all the factors 1+2+3, the result is the original number which is 6. The next perfect number is 28. 1+2+4+7+14=28.

'Perfect Numbers' demonstrate even more interesting characteristics in that they are always the sum of consecutive numbers. For example :

1+2+3=6
1+2+3+4+5+6+7= 28

The Pythagoreans attempted to connect these 'perfect numbers' to phenomena in the natural world. For example, the moon orbits the earth every 28 days and 28 is a 'perfect number'. There was another interesting pattern called 'slightly defectiv'e numbers and they dealt primarily powers of the number 2. For example :

2^2=2x2 = 4 Factors = 1, 2 Sum of Factors =3
2^3=2x2x2 =8 Factors= 1,2,4 Sum of Factors=7

The sum of the factors with powers of the number 2 seem t o be 'slightly defective' or 1 less than the exponentiation.

The Universe in a Single Atom

I have almost completed reading Tenzin Gyatso's latest book "The Universe in a Single Atom" and must say that I am a scientist at heart (not the white lab coat variety -- perhaps more of the genuinely 'curious about the the world' type) and was very interested in reading a book that tried to reconcile spirituality and modern science. Intuitively the two topics seem almost contradictory and having spent more than a bit of time trying to understand classical and quantum physics - I was intruiged that someone had tried to integrate these two frameworks. Both Physics and Sprituality have a similiar role and differ primarily in approach. They both are 'methods' to understsand percieved reality and the physical world around us. In his words "I believe that spirituality and science are complimentary but different investigative approaches with the same goal of seeking the truth." He describes his rationale for trying to bridge the two as "an effort to examine two important human disciplines for the purpose of developing a more holistic and integrated way of understanding the world around us". He is genuinely curious about science and was fortunate enough to be around some of the greatest scientific minds of our time including Sir Karl Popper, Anton Zeilinger, Stephen Kosslyn, and David Bohm to name a few and he regards them all as his teachers.
He talked about how the exciting world of quantum mechanics challenges our commonsense understanding of the world and he embraces the scientific paradigm shift. Light can be percieved as a either a wave or a particle and the subatomic world of quantom mechanics is very much nondeterministic. You cannot observe reality without inherently changing it and seeing these concepts interwoven with his discipline of spirituality was a unique and revealing perspective.
Overall I found the book an excellent read. It ties concepts together unlike other text I've seen. It reads like a journal and is an interesting glimpse into his personal journey. Tenzin Gyatso is a scientist in the purest sense of the word. His life long journey of seeking truth and expanding his understanding of reality by taking an inclusive approach which entails embracing both his own discipline and the empirical evidence of modern science is very refreshing.

Jake's Famous Crawfish

So I'm back from Portland and the sun was shining and it is certainly starting to feel like home and I don't even live there yet. On the long plane ride back east there isn't much else to do besides maybe catching up on some reading and just thinking. I thought abbout how comfortable I felt while in Oregon and how sometimes (for long periods on end) I would not be conscious of where I was and I just felt at home. It made me wonder if home was place or is something more like a feeling.
Mary Kay ended the day by taking Sim & I to "Jake's Famous Crawfish", a charming turn of the century seafood restaurant in downtown Portland. It had to be one of the most pleasant evenings that I have had in a very long time and it was nice to sit and catch my breath in the midst of all that is going on around me these days. Thanks for the warm welcome to Portland and for making us feel at home.

I read that China's President Hu Jintao will be visiting the United States for the first time next week. What I found especially peculiar was that instead of making the White House his first stop (as most foreign heads of state might do), he is in fact headed to the pacific north west . He is visiting Seattle and will have dinner with Bill Gates and other influencial politicians and business people before starting his diplomatic tour. I was unclear on what to read into that except of course that somehow the richest man in the world had eclipsed the attention of this Chinese official. Well I sure hope he enjoys that part of the country as much as I just did.

Teachers

I noticed that my tea bag this morning had this written on the label and it made me think about the inseparable dynamic between teacher and pupil. 'He who is the best student is the best teacher.' Yes I am definately a scientist -not with a long white coat. I do have the same sense of wonder about the world that I had since I was boy and perhaps modern science has missed the boat in this regard. The only difference now is that the model I am forming in my mind is more complex and is certainly as incomplete as it has ever been. My goal is to understand the world around me with a model that reconsiles both classical and quantom views. Although intuition says that they are polar opposites -- I don't entirely buy that - the nexus has just never struck anyone. I will warn against trying to bend 'reality' to fit a model as opposed to the other way around because after all -- as we all know - The World is not Flat . (Or according to Friedman -- It is becoming so again :) )

I decided to try to sell/market my place before formally listing the unit with a real estate broker. Hey why not - it's worth a shot ! I am marketing it to my friends, family, and most importantly over the internet. I'm glad I did, am amazed at the results, and I was inspired by --- well the "architecture of participation" . People are cetainly participating and although it is counter intuitive right now -- "as more people participate, the quality of service does gets better." See you there .