Becoming The Overman

The rain set early in to-night,
-And bitter cold wrapped seam to seam,
When there I followed dreamy lights
-That stole me down a swifter stream
-To lands were people nearly dream.
And what along the dreary lies
-To where we speak and softly true
Do know the highs of sleepy cries
-Where all the children softly do
-Sleep crying through a milky hue.
And I, a man but not a man,
-And her, a teeming little sprite,
We laughed and sang as life began,
-And poured a wine to fix the night
-As off we followed dreamy lights
To places where the sun began
-And shown its light upon the morn--
Upon the Earth, the moon, it ran;
-Upon the naked space I'd sworn
-To softly live a life reborn.
Wondering if she loved me--she
-Who knew not true my name or face,
Sending through the glass so free
-I seperate from her embrace;
-A fine divine and lovely place.
And Luna to the left of me,
-And Metus standing to the right,
We found a door along the sea
-That carved itself among the night
-And peeled out the light-to-light.
But Luna shot an eerie cry
-That pierced the even ocean sound,
And eyes of wide she softly sighed
-"The cupido is oft abound,
-And three times wrapped my neck around!"
And as she fell aross the floor
-Sweet Metus took her in his hands
And sweetly kissed her more and more
-To wipe away the soiled sand
-And lay her down across the land.
And as he held her, crying sweet,
-My body turned away around
And felt the door an aweful heat
-That touched me with a wicked sound
-And there around my neck it wound.
But here, alas, I saw it true,
-And what within the door was writ
But, "Cupido within here moves,
-And where within I shall admit
-Who cupido to here commits."
I turned to see my comrades lie
-Together on the soggy shore;
Sweet silent tears and teary sighs
-Together make a living more
-Than simply walking through a door.
I wept, I cried so heavy still,
-And with my brother Metus pained,
And held my heart as weepers will
-So wished to fall like water rained--
-For love's not worth the unexplained.
And here the door and letter grew,
-And opened spoke a light of gold,
And understanding, now, I knew
-That cupido, as letters told,
-Was simply love in times of cold.
My breath, it grew much deeper, deep,
-And filled my chest with solemn air;
And just as when the weeper weeps,
-I shook my breath as unaware
-As dying in the shade. And there
I saw a sight to never leave
-My mind, as long as living goes--
A piano black my eyes percieved
-With resting on its livid flows
-A soft and supple, silky rose.
With bitter cold wrapped seam to seam,
-I know the things that no one knows,
That in the land where people dream,
-To lie with Luna, Metus chose
-To never see the sleeping rose.

-C. Nicholas Walker, 2006

Posted by C. Nicholas Walker at 1:19 AM | Permalink | Comments

I'VE BEEN DYING to go see this movie ever since I saw the teaser for it, and yesterday I got my wish. A ladyfriend of mine, Beth, was very hesitant; I practically had to drag her into the theatre in handcuffs. She said that Daniel Craig didn't look like a good Bond. I'm happy to say that she changed her mind. And even thought this new Bond flick is about twenty minutes too long, it is a great Bond and one that is wholly recommended.

STORY: Good -- The movie was about twenty minutes too long. Sadly, I found myself actually looking at my watch when there was about five minutes left to go. This is only because the pacing is so odd that you never know when it's done.

Posted by C. Nicholas Walker at 12:12 AM | Permalink | Comments

Posted by C. Nicholas Walker at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments

The following is a persuasive speech written by C. Nicholas Walker to validate teaching in public schools the theory of evolution by natural selection.

PICK UP ANY science book and look inside. Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Astronomy; they are all filled with countless theories and law that, for the time, best explain their associated mysteries, but could tomorrow likely succumb to a new theory that is more precise or better explained. Theories have always been taught in public schools, even when still incomplete. Evolution by natural selection is a valid theory both hypothesized and experimented with using the scientific method, and is just as valid a science as any other.

First of all, we must ask ourselves, "What actually defines a theory?" The basic definition for a scientific theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a related set of phenomena. It originates from or is supported by the scientific method, in which a hypothesis is introduced and either proven or refuted through a series of experiments and data collections; predictive, logical, and testable. It should always be tentative, subject to change, and some even measure the degree of a theory's worth by its falsifiability. For instance, Newton's theory of gravity held true for around 600 years until Einstein's replaced it with more precise calculations. Another example is that black holes were considered completely theoretical until recently, when they were observed in nature -- now there is hardly any self-respecting physicist who doesn't believe in them! There's a good story about a student who turned in his paper on a new theory of his he believed would change the face of science forever; the professor simply read over the paper, looked at the student and said, "This isn't right. It's not even wrong!" What that means is that I could write a theory that says there are hundreds of unicorns living in the center of the sun, and while no one would be able to dissprove me, it certainly doesn't lend any more credulity to my thesis. Lastly -- and this is the more loosly followed of the rules -- a theory should be the most parsimonious, or least complex, explanation for an obervation; a good example is the simplicity of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Not convoluted, but simple and to the point.

Now that we know what defines a theory, let us see if evolution by natural selection falls into such a category. Firstly, we must ask ourselves, "Is evolution a logically self-consistent model for describing the phenomenon?" Another way of asking this is, "Does evolution use the scientific method to validate itself?" Well, if you could, imagine with me a large forest. All of the trees in this forest are a wonderful brown, and inside this forest there lives a species of moth, which are also brown, so that when a predator comes to eat them, they flatten their bodies against the tree and become invisible -- therefore not eaten. One day, a great disease wipes through the forest and turns all of the brown to grey. Just as some of us humans are different shades, so there are some moths who are more towards the brown scale, and other more towards the grey. When the brown moths are being attacked, they flatten against the grey tree and, alas, are easily seen and eaten. However, these greyer moths attempt to hide and successfully do, better matching the color of the trees. They survive, procreate, and have offspring which is even more towards the grey scale. Eventually, all of the brown moths are eaten and only the grey ones are able to live on. We check back on this forest 100 years later to find that, lo and behold, all of the moths are grey as the trees...a perfect match, even. That is evolution by natural selection, and it does follow the scientific method of hypothesis and experimentation/observation. It has been tested, predicts future evolutions, and is extremely logical. Next, we ask ourselves if evolution is tentative and falsifiable. The answer is...extremely; modern evolution theory began in 1859 with Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species," and is always being altered and added onto along with the findings of more evidence in fossil records. Lastly, we ask ourselves is evolution is a parsimonious explanation; the idea for evolution is simple. Organisms more apt to survive actually do, and pass these genes to the following generations (and although an even simpler explanation would be God, God is not a proper scientific theory because it does not follow the scientific method, and that is the only reason it shouldn't be taught in science rooms).

Now that we see that evolution does follow all the criteria for a scientific theory, let us see if it should indeed be taught. You see, a theory musn't be right, as much as it should be the best avaliable, most testable explanation avaliable. And although there are places where evolution cannot fully explain, its studies of numerous volumes explain wonderfully 98% of the phenomena. A religious argument, in that it supresses other's beliefs, is flawed; everything about basic astronomy and earth sciences goes against evidence from the Bible, yet these hold true and are taught everyday without interruption. Because it follows the scientific method, and is not a theory of creation (and therefore does not have to prove creation), it should not be reserved for classes on religion and philosophy. That last part bears repeating, so I'll say it again: Evolution IS NOT a theory to explain where we come from, but only to explain how we got to where we are now.

Now, let's look back into our imaginary science books, this time removing all scientific theories that do not explain 100% of the associated phenomena. That includes Special Relativity and General Relativity...they have to go. For Chemistry, we have to remove the Atomic theory, Kinetic theory of gases...they have to go. Let's see...global warming, continental drift, plate tectonics, chaos theory, number theory, music theory, acoustic theory, cell theory; suddenly we realize that these science books simply wouldn't exist anymore. So, I say again, evolution by natural selection is a scientific theory, just like any other, that uses hypothesis and experimentation to explain the observation. Take it from the classrooms, and you take with it everything else.

Posted by C. Nicholas Walker at 1:51 AM | Permalink | Comments

________1.
I met her in the Garden Green
The day that I turned seventeen--
__Yet no one saw
__That vacant fraud
Standing there in front of me.

________2.
She motioned to me with her hand
A dry and wet sublime command--
__And then I know
__I moved so slow
Like weighing down beneath the sand.
__The flowers where this lovely stands were red like I knew love,
__So she knelt down and cupped her hands in flowers red as blood.

________3.
I walked to her so slowly, now,
And bent to give a candid bow--
__The bloom she felt
__Did seem to melt;
The pedals seemed a life allowed.

________4.
With power in her fingertips
She gave the bloom a careful grip--
__Like water’s brands
__She kissed her hands
And proved the power in her lips.
__The flower that this lovely held had pedals move with life,
__And there I saw the flower red become a butterfly.

________5.
And when she blew the life to fly
I asked her what of her and I--
__And in the sky
__The flowers flied....
She disappeared with just a sigh.
__The flowers where this lovely stood were floating through the air,
__And as I left I heard her voice sing songs of I’ll Be There.

________6.
I met her in the Garden Green
The day that I turned seventeen--
__Yet no one saw
__That vacant fraud
Standing 'neath the smiling tree.

-C. Nicholas Walker, 2006

Posted by C. Nicholas Walker at 9:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

COULD WE IMAGINE for a moment up being down? Or, perhaps, a universe where forward and backward were the same movement? Maybe even a parallel world in some far-off dimension where pushing on an object...actually made it push back? These may seem like nonsensical, even ridiculous ideas of some strange writer's fancy, but according to certain fields in theoretical physics these sorts of things could be happening all the time, we simply don't know about it. Not only that, but they could be the underlying key in the workings of the universe; a science that, if tamed, could provide humanity with inexaustable technological workings, including warp drives or, quite possibly, time travel -- the stuff is called "exotic matter," but I'm getting ahead of myself. Before we start falling into the actual physics of things, it should be explained what exactly exotic matter is.

Exotic matter is a hypothetical concept of particle physics. It covers any material which violates one or more classical conditions or is not made of known baryonic particles* (a baryonic particle, in its essence, is simply a class of sub-atomic particles which is made up of three quarks, two of the most famous of which would be the protons and neutrons which make up the present-day atom). Physicists usually tend to use this somewhat fictional substance to explain many of the things which baffle them, one example of which being how wormholes stay open instead of collapsing onto a singularity as do black holes. The explanation for this is something called negative mass.

Just saying it, or even thinking about it, proves rather futile; it is indeed a concept that is difficult to grasp. But the whole idea revolves around the fact that matter consisting of baryonic particles has positive mass, as in 1 kilogram, or 10, or 1000; this is a simple thing. Using Newton's equation for force, we can describe the basic proponents for how mass will react in relationship to acceleration to create positive force:

Thusly we see that positive inertial mass times acceleration equals total force. However, if in using this equation we replaced positive mass with negative mass, we would find that the force is also negative, meaning that if you kicked a chair with negative mass, it would move in the opposite direction, in essence kicking you back! Or, perhaps, imagine going shopping for groceries; as you walk into the store you notice a sign above the shopping carts in yellow and black stripes that reads, "WARNING: NEW NEGATIVE MASS CARTS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE." Of course, wondering what this all means, you grab a cart by the handle and begin to push, only to notice that you're moving in the opposite direction. Out of habit, you try to stop it by pushing harder, only to find you simply move backwards even faster. Finally, just when you're about to give up, you notice a small sign on the handle that reads, "PULL ME." With no other options at hand, you give the cart a tug and immediately stop. Curious, you tug again, and find yourself sailing off in the forward direction...towards the cereal and milk. After a few minutes, you catch the hang of it and pulling to push -- and pushing to pull -- all seems rather natural to you. But, then again, what do you hypothesize will happen when you start to put things inside the cart?

Of course, if we can live in a world with negative masses, then also other forms of matter can be imagined as well, the next of which I'll talk about now. Imaginary mass follows the same basic understandings as negative mass, in that it is simply a change made to an equation. In this case I begin with the equation for a particles total energy:

With normal, positive mass, it is obvious the way these particles act. One of the main results of positive mass is that, for E to be a real number, velocity cannot surpass the speed of light. However, if we replace mass with an imaginary number (that is, the square root of a negative) we see that, in order to retain a real number for the value of E, the value of the denominator must also be an imaginary -- for an imaginary divided by an imaginary equals a real. In order for this to happen, the following must be true: the value inside the square root must be less than zero. The only way to acheive this is to have the velocity greater than the speed of light, which goes against every theory on the propagation of the speed of light; a faster-than-light particle is said to be superluminous, and is usually referred to as a Tachyon.

Posted by C. Nicholas Walker at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments

Labels: nature, poetry

Posted by C. Nicholas Walker at 2:23 PM | Permalink | Comments