“…for me there is no greater bore than a 100-per-cent male or female. Confronted by a massive two-fisted barrel-chested he-man or a fluttering itsy-bitsy, all-tendril female, I run from their irksome company. The men and women I prize are a happy blend of male and female characteristics. A man who is masculine with a definitely female streak of perception, intuition and tenderness is a whole man;he is an interesting man, a gay companion, a complete lover. A woman who possesses a sufficient strain of masculinity to make her thoughtful, decisive, worldly in the best meaning of the word;fair; self-reliant; companionable- this is a whole woman.
The feminine in the man is the sugar in the whiskey. The masculine in the woman is the yeast in the bread. Without these ingredients the result is flat, without tang or flavor.” Edna Ferber, A Kind of Magic (Gollancz,London)
Archive for September, 2012
Points to Ponder-vive la difference
Posted in quotes, tagged battle of the sexes, Benny Thomas, Edna Ferber, family, gender differences, man and woman, relationships, sex, sociology on September 30, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Molotov on Stalin
Posted in anecdotes, tagged Benny Thomas, De Gaulle, dictator, Europe, governance, history, Joseph Stalin, Molotov, Russia, scale, soviet Union on September 29, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Molotov told de Gaulle that he once stood behind Stalin who believed himself alone. With his two hands he covered large parts of the globe that stood in his study. The entire Europe lay covered by his one palm and he was heard muttering,”It’s small, Europe.”
Anecdotes: borrowing costs
Posted in anecdotes, moral philosophy, tagged anecdotes, Benny Thomas, character, debt trap, essay, john ruskin, Samuel Foote, unto this last on September 29, 2012| 1 Comment »
Samuel Foote(1720-1777) wit
Dear Son,
I am in prison for debt; come and assist your loving mother.-E. Foote
Dear Mother,
So am I; which prevents his loving duty being paid to his loving mother.-Your affectionate son.
Samuel Foote
P.S_ I have sent my attorney to assist you; in the mean time let us hope for better days.
ii
John Ruskin (1819-1900)
John Ruskin once received a request for donation to pay off the mortgage of the Duke Street Chapel and I have given here below an excerpt of his reply. It would seem he was addressing our present world; and for those who want buy now and pay later it may even be an eye opener!
Brentwood, 19 May,1886,
Sir,
I am scornfully amused at your appeal to me, of all people in the world the precisely least like to give you a farthing! My first word to all men and boys to hear me is”Don’t get into debt. Starve and go to heaven-but don’t borrow. Try first begging_ I don’t mind if it’s really needful_stealing!. But don’t buy things you can’t pay for!”….
Isn’t it surprising how what we hold up as a virtue and a proof of a solid character is chipped away so slowly that none notices the enervation of personal values? In his essay ‘Unto This Last’ Ruskin wrote ‘There is no wealth but life.’
Dulled senses of a person who has chased a mirage at the cost of his or her personal values,-character, take the place as a slave driver. No pity or no worthwhile example but the constant goading the person to acquire branded items that he or she doesn’t really need. The victim scarcely notices what is branded right through the flesh to the spirit.
Moral: Virtues of one Age are the vices of another. Capitalism invented mass consumerism and made the bible for the lost and the damned. One only needs to see the mess we are all in.
benny
pen portraits:Johannes Gutenberg
Posted in personalities, tagged Benny Thomas, black &white, civilization, exchange of ideas, informed public, inventor, pen drawing, printing movable types, reading on September 28, 2012| 1 Comment »
While we trace inventions that changed the world printing is considered as a turning point. Invention of fire was one; mariner’s compass was another.
Printing was momentous in its capacity to work out a sea change in transmitting thoughts of man,which however came at the cost of another. Mechanical types killed calligraphy. Gutenberg changed the labor intensive process of disseminating ideas of man. Earlier times the monks laboriously copied books. Owning a book was a luxury that only a few could afford. Fine calligraphy of the text on vellum and when illuminated made the text come alive; on the margin one may guess how the scribes alleviated the drudgery of copying, with fanciful creatures. These like cathedrals typified man’s offering to God the work of their hands that took their whole lives as well. There was art, faith and a singular dedication to glorify their maker.
Printing on the other hand made reading easily accessible to the masses. Penny dreadfuls and yellow journalism were waiting to be discovered.
Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press with replaceable/moveable wooden or metal letters in 1436 (completed by 1440). This method of printing can be credited not only for a revolution in the production of books, but also for fostering rapid development in the sciences, arts and religion through the transmission of texts.
The earliest dated printed book known is the “Diamond Sutra”, printed in China in 868 CE. However, it is suspected that book printing may have occurred long before this date.
In 1041, movable clay type was first invented in China. Johannes Gutenberg, a goldsmith and businessman from the mining town of Mainz in southern Germany, borrowed money to invent a technology that changed the world of printing.
Gutenberg Press
The Gutenberg press with its wooden and later metal movable type printing brought down the price of printed materials and made such materials available for the masses. It remained the standard until the 20th century. The Gutenberg printing press developed from the technology of the screw-type wine presses of the Rhine Valley. It was there in 1440 that Johannes Gutenberg created his printing press, a hand press, in which ink was rolled over the raised surfaces of moveable hand-set block letters held within a wooden form and the form was then pressed against a sheet of paper.
Gutenberg Bible
Johannes Gutenberg is also accredited with printing the world’s first book using movable type, the 42-line (the number of lines per page) Gutenberg Bible.
During the centuries, many newer printing technologies were developed based on Gutenberg’s printing machine e.g. offset printing.
Brief Biography – Johannes Gutenberg
Gutenberg was born between 1394 and 1400 and died in 1468.
In 1438, Gutenberg began a business arrangement with Andreas Dritzehn, who funded his experiments in printing. In 1450, Gutenberg began a second arrangement with German businessman Johannes Fust. Fust lent Gutenberg the money to start a printing business and build a large Gutenberg Press, their printing projects included the now famous Gutenberg Bible. On September 30, 1452, Johann Guttenberg’s Bible was published becoming the first book to be published in volume. (Johannes Gutenberg and the printing press/ about.com guide, Mary Bellis)
benny
Web of Knowledge
Posted in moral philosophy, Science, tagged Benny Thomas, DNA, God, lateral shoots, lattice like, Science, scientific breakthroughs, web of humanity, web of knowledge on September 27, 2012| 1 Comment »
In my post on Theory of Something I used the analogy of a walk in the woods to develop a scientific temper. Nature gave man the first stirrings to wonder at the simple daily occurrences. Thus one may wonder why leaves fall or an apple falls to ground and not fly off. If his train of thoughts carried him to come to grips with the gravity, naturally he may soon wonder why the moon does not fall as leaves or fruits? Man is in context of other humans who all have sometime or other similarly wondered as Isaac Newton Galileo or Kepler. How come then all are not scientists? The same pure impulses that instilled in a baby to wonder at everything have changed shape or run into other experiences that carry him to follow in many other directions. The pure impulse of truth must negotiate with life of each. The baby that wondered at the falling leaves has found what makes the world at large go gaga. Wealth. If he sells himself to cut down rain forests for profit he is only falling in with rest of the world that has made wealth their goal above everything else.
No man even with a proper scientific spirit has stuck to a groove to investigate the alpha and omega of his universe. In 1869 Miescher discovered nuclein (DNA) and left since he could not precisely identify its use. Some 25 years later he could separate it into nuclide acid, a protein. It had to wait till 1920 to realize this nucleic acid plays a vital role in the chromosomes. In 1944 Oswald Avery identifies it as the active principle in bacterial transformation. In 1953 Watson and Crick could determine the double helix shape of DNA. In short the path cut in the woods is not one single highway but meandering pathways of so many acting out their hunches based on the single stirring of truth in each.
Miescher wondering over the DNA in the cells of a pus he was working with, had no idea but got around to investigating it further after so many years. By then his active life must have passed and it was left to others to come back to it at their own convenience and needs. Meisher was vindicated in another age and on account of many other breakthroughs elsewhere.
ii
Child is the father of Man and unfortunately in many cases the truth has been clouded over by ‘ways of the world’ and how he looks at the world is not one to one but accumulated peer pressure of so many and immediate needs.
Moral sense of an individual is unfortunately clouded over by many others. If he has gone under and did not do as he ought to have we may say it is human failing. There is no one who is perfect and if one say he is, he is a rascal of the first order. We can only behave as human hoping for the best and if we have found our feet we ought to think of failings of others in similar light. As a Christian I am in need of grace and it is what I owe to truth when given a Being and a name God.
For each of us web of knowledge must be held in tact upon truth.
benny
Poems for the Solitary Hour-W B. Yeats
Posted in 20th century literature, poetry, tagged Benny Thomas, early period, food for the soul, poetry, poetry for the solitary hour, romanticism, W B Yeats on September 26, 2012| Leave a Comment »
The Stolen Child
Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we’ve had our faery vats,
Full of berries,
And the reddest stolen cherries.
Come away,O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery,hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can ever understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances,
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Away with us he’s going,
The solemn-eyed –
He’ll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest
For he comes the human child
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand
From a world more full of weeping than he can understand
The poem was first published in the Irish Monthly in December 1886. The poem was then published in a compilation of work by several Irish poets Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland in 1888 with several critics praising the poem.
W.B Yeats
A Fable: formed and formless
Posted in fables, moral philosophy, tagged Benedict Spinoza, Benny Thomas, common denominator, ethics, moral philosophy, moral sense on September 25, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Among the floating clouds a Giant lived a life of ease and untouched by age or want. Though the many islands surrounding his domain melted regularly to form rain pelting the earth below he suffered no injury. He for all his largeness didn’t let any fleeting thought escape. Once he thought a profound thought ‘if I were large there must be those forms larger than me. Next he thought there must be on the reverse scale miniscule atoms as well.
Buoyed up by his new run of thoughts he said,’I would like to meet one.’ It was not out of vanity but to exchange some ideas he had lately dwelt upon.
Indeed eons later he came across one which said he was proceeding to look for the largest form he could possibly find.
‘ Do you have a form, if you please?’ the Atom asked.
‘Can you not see my form?’ the Giant was amazed.
The Atom with an apology asked if he could probe first if it were worth his while.’Afterall having to describe things by another medium is a dubious practice. I can only make sure by taking a leap into whatever.’ With these words he whirled through the Giant and coming other side he said,’I felt at home as I did every other form. It assured me immeasurably that any further probe was unnecessary and a waste of time.’
The Giant felt humble and he asked,’ Who or what are you?’
‘I am Truth.Wasn’t it obvious?’ The Giant shook his head.
The Giant asked,’Do you have parents?’
‘What for?’ the Atom almost wanted to say but he checked himself,’It will complicate matters. He shall only distract himself from understanding what I am or he is to me.’
Searching for truth is for many is a useful tool to distract themselves from knowing what they really ought to do something about. This we have so many religions ,and folderol, believers, that render them unable to profit from truth which is in the very warp and woof of their existence. Man who tries to bend another to his ‘belief’ insults truth that is in all.
According to Spinoza God is the Essence or causa sui and Nature are events in mode revealing truth about that Cause in many telling ways. Man who is sensitive to his place in the scheme of things shall lay emphases differently than where religion does. Religion is more concerned about its organizational health than moral health of the flock .Result of this is evident in our present times.
Maribou Stork-drawing
Posted in animals, tagged after Beth Heusen, art, Benny Thomas, birds, color pencils, pen and ink, storks on September 25, 2012| 1 Comment »
Theory of Something
Posted in God, Science, tagged Benny Thomas, Big Bang, Creation account, In the beginning, Planck length, Space, speculation, The Book of Genesis, theory of something, time, tohu and bohu, universe on September 19, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Science is like a walk in the woods where no paths are cut by hand of man and light percolates through foliage to give one walking there certain ideas. In ancient Greece Philosophers like Heralitus, Democritus by observation predicted the nature of matter. They relied on their own power of observation to arrive at such a conclusion. Such foray into a virginal Nature has ways of creating more traffic and before one is aware the woods are less than what it was before. There are signposts and areas each claiming its own speciality. Simple speculative philosophy of the Pre-Socratic period gave way to moral philosophy at the time of Aristotle.These are all in nature of things given man’s ability for abstract thinking.
Science sets parameters to abstract ideas where his observation also helps in the matter. It was Aristotle who said women has less teeth than man. Had he checked it out before he asserted it he would have known for certain.
Leucippos and Democritus are not irrelevant even now since they are our pathfinders. At this time of remarkable sophistication with electron microscopes and many other tools we stepped into the heart of matter. While Leucippos of Abdera held up a tiny grain of sand and predicted it could be still divided. Yet until one reaches a place where it is like Pillars of Hercules with a caveat ‘until this and no further.’
Now we know atom is made up of neutrons protons and electrons and the first two are made up of 3 quarks. Why it is in three I cannot say. I read lately that Planck’s length is the tiniest. Since I am writing off hand without reference one may check it out.
What I am driving it is that at such a ‘point or length’ it is like using an elephant to split the hair of a flea. Space and time are annihilated or we have to conclude these two have always existed. We have created some kind of time and space from the eternal nature of Space and Time to set our own space time relativity etc.,Like the Japanese we borrowed scenery of space time from the eternal nature of Space-Time. It is relative.
Oh I used the R word! Since Einstein made an earth shaking discovery of relativity I shall mention en passant on another theory that he had been grappling with even on the day he died. Theory of Everything. I shall leave the news on hand for those who are interested.
I shall merely point out the point#6 to make the immediate purpose of this post clearer.
‘The universe was not created at the Big Bang – Space, time and the laws of physics already existed and still exist. The Big Bang “only seeded” our active universe, when the dark energy in the form of a black hole from a surrounding positive universe entered into our universe.” Think of two universes where we have a positive universe while our universe in relation to this works as negative. Dark energy sweeping from one sets our universe pulsating. In the creation account of Genesis, the earth was without form meaning space and time that we associate with our material universe were absent. It is like saying from look of a pitch black room that it is without form. Naturally one misses the black cat sleeping in its corner.
That something which gave the universe some comprehension was space and time. ‘In the beginning’-That beginning is to be understood as from our point of reference. It began according to Science with dark energy. The Bible speaks of Spirit, or a dove which are all on account of our finite nature. The holy prophet who wrote this verse like Democritus derived his knowledge on something that defies human logic and understanding.
Energy is borrowed rather than what had known of it: energy is neither created destroyed.
benny
A new theory – remarkably simple and understandable – unifies the gravity force in the large cosmos with the forces of the quantum world by introducing a single fundamental particle that makes up all other particles, matter and space itself.
Washington, DC (PRWEB) September 13, 2012
A new theory unifies the gravity force in the large cosmos with the forces of the quantum world by introducing a single fundamental particle that makes up all other particles and matter. The same particle also makes up the room itself by a Grid of these particles filling all of space, in which matter and everything is encapsulated. Mass is generated by a mechanism in the Grid instead of being a quality of particles; kg is not a base unit and all objects are surrounded by a portion of the Grid called the Grid room that gives them their mass.
The new Theory of Something is very different from other theories with extra dimensions and mysterious results. It details the underlying particles and mechanisms which greatly simplify the understanding of how the smallest to the largest in the universe works: There are only three room dimensions and time, there is a single fundamental particle – called the negtrino – and its antiparticle – the postrino – and only one force. The force is the electromagnetic and classic electromagnetic theory instead quantum mechanics is used for the description and supporting mathematics.
The new theory resolves most problems of other theories; the fundamental constants do not have to be fine-tuned, it can now be understood where the antimatter is, the energy of the Big Bang and the whole universe does not have to come out of nothing and our laws of physics can always and everywhere be the same instead of new laws appearing at certain points. Even our common mechanical laws of physics can be derived from the single force law in the Theory of Something. Newton’s second law of motion, F=ma, is actually derived for the first time in history.
With the Theory of Something it is now possible to understand why space-time curves around matter, as Einstein taught in 1916 and also to understand what a photon – the light particle – actually is.
A summary of the Theory of Something including more than 30 specific points supporting the new theory is published at http://theoryofsomething.com. The most staggering proof of the Theory of Something model is that Planck’s constant 1.0545×10-34 Js – the value that has been verified in all quantum physics experiments – can be calculated as the dark energy (recently detected by cosmologists) split up on each negtrino in the Grid.
G.D. Tosman that has developed the Theory of Something points out that with an understanding of the underlying reality, there are now much further experiments, computer simulations, verifications, development and discoveries that can be done to bring the understanding of the universe and its origin forward.
— The Largest Step Forward Since Einstein —
Commenting on how he could find the solution that Einstein searched for during his last 35 years and that has puzzled the scientific community for 100 years, G.D. Tosman reflects over the ToS (as he calls the Theory of Something): “Many of the clues and ideas have been around for some time or for very long:
There must again be an ‘aether’ – something that fills up space – whether it is called the Grid in the ToS, the Higgs field, branes in string theory, the LQG field or a structured vacuum.
Paul Dirac had a hole theory and a sea of electrons in 1928 and that is close to the ToS hole mechanism that generates positive particles although the are only negative particles in our universe.
A zero energy universe, where mass and gravity energy equal out, is also pointed out these days. And cyclic universe models indicate that the energy of the universe is borrowed, rather than created.
And the six extra dimensions required in string theory are a sign that more is needed for a complete description – In the ToS we have the magic Grid where the position of each negtrino is fixed, but its six possible magnetic directions are essential.”
He continues, “I had the fortune of putting the ToS together and perhaps benefited by not being skilled in the advanced math of other theories, but had to rely on understandable electromagnetic theory.”
— The Key Points of the Theory of Something —
G.D. Tosman states: “The key to the ToS was not just a single smaller fundamental particle, but these six key points:
1. Space is filled with the elementary charge particle and our universe has only negative charge particles. There is no emptiness – no ‘Nothing’.
2. When clumped together, the same elementary charge particle makes up all other particles and matter.
3. Things like mass and everything above, are mechanisms – not qualities of particles.
4. The four fundamental forces – the strong, the weak, the electromagnetic and gravity – all emanate from a single force, the electromagnetic (a slightly modified generalized equation is proposed in the ToS).
5. The photon is a wave in the form of the energy of rotating negtrinos in the Grid.
6. The universe was not created at the Big Bang – Space, time and the laws of physics already existed and still exist. The Big Bang “only seeded” our active universe, when the dark energy in the form of a black hole from a surrounding positive universe entered into our universe.”
There is a summary of the Theory of Something also listing support and proofs at http://bit.ly/ROyJJf
G.D. Tosman
Theory of Something
+12063092187 theoryofsomething@gmail.com
Email Information
Pen Portraits-Queen Victoria
Posted in art, personalities, tagged Benny Thomas, Great Britain, monarch, pen drawing, pen portraits, Queen Victoria on September 18, 2012| 3 Comments »