0 comments/ 8545 views/ 0 favorites Faustina By: Taunus The Tragedy of Faustus Mortal Most of our lives follow along the trivial solution to that complex partial differential equation governing our place in the general scheme of things. One can only deviate from the steady-state at a particular branch point, known as an eigenvalue. Once bifurcated from the trivial solution either one must return again or experience the singularity and bifurcate to infinity. For sure each will eventually reach a terminus. That is, unless one can live forever as a mortal being. That hasn't happened yet, to the best of my knowledge. Faustina Mortal: May the Love of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with you. Faustus Mortal: I am not much into religion. Faustus Mortal: Why don't you tell me why you are disturbing me today? Faustina Mortal: It's the energy dilemma and global warming. Faustus Mortal: Go tell it on the mountain! Faustus Mortal: Let the eggheads and tenured teachers answer you. Faustus Mortal: They are well-paid and pampered. Faustus Mortal: Surely they have the one true solution! Faustina Mortal: Unfortunately they have no answer. Faustus Mortal: Give them more money and special privileges. Faustus Mortal: After all, they booted me from academia. Faustina Mortal: Bitter, bitter! Faustina Mortal: What if the great minds had all taken that position? Faustus Mortal: I am no longer a "great mind." Faustus Mortal: My time has come and gone. Faustus Mortal: Like an athlete, the creative ability is short-lived. Faustus Mortal: After age thirty almost nothing new can be done. Faustus Mortal: Few are willing to admit this truth, however. Faustina Mortal: You have claimed to have a formula, a solution. Faustus Mortal: I do, but no one believes me. Faustina Mortal: From whence did it come? Faustus Mortal: If I tell, you will laugh at me. Faustina Mortal: Probably so, but do tell anyway. Faustus Mortal frowns. Faustina Mortal: There are just you and I here. Faustus Mortal: I used to drive from work to graduate classes. Faustus Mortal: Down a California freeway, and think. Faustus Mortal: One day I spoke out loud inside the truck. Faustus Mortal: And asked Yahweh to tell me the secret of the universe. Faustus Mortal: That evening an equation came into my headbrain [sic]. Faustus Mortal: It was the ratio of the mass of the proton to the electron. Faustus Mortal: At that time the published CODATA/NIST value was 1836.15152 Faustus Mortal: And mine was 1836.15172, within one standard deviation! Faustus Mortal: The formula was 64pi^3-48pi+8/pi. Faustus Mortal: It would be months before I factored it. Faustus Mortal: 4pi(4pi-1/pi)(4pi-2/pi), and longer still Faustus Mortal: Until I derived it from two mathematical niceties. Faustina Mortal: "Niceties"? Faustus Mortal: The Inversion of the Spheres and the volume of the spherical cone. The two give an explanation of the construction of the proton from the positive electron---the positron. At the precise moment of the big bang there was pair production---like the electron/positron---but lopsided. It was the proton (which is massive) and the electron. Only the geometry of the proton was hidden from the mind of man and clouded with complicated, convolved, complex conundrums. Not easily unraveled. But there was a second vision. And I did not know as I know now: "Tell a vision to no one." I told her that she would have secular immortality. Me and my big mouth! If only I had kept silent. Faustus Mortal pouts. Faustina Mortal: "Secular immortality" sounds like an oxymoron! Faustus Mortal: Whose name will be remembered longer? Pythagoras or some potentate? Names attached to mathematical of scientific concepts endure. They are academic and achieve what organized religion only promises, a form of immortality, perhaps even transcending the span of human life as well! Faustina Mortal: But only the Love of Gor promises true immortality. Faustus Mortal coughs. Faustina Mortal: So describe the geometry you spoke of. I am curious. Faustus Mortal: The proton starts as a positron, a positive electron, unwrapped as a standing wave tangent to the solid ball at a single point. This singular point becomes the center and the new geometry is a sphere of radius 4pi containing a ball of radius two. See, I will draw a picture. Faustus Mortal sketches two concentric spheres of radii 4pi and 2. Faustina Mortal: Interesting. Faustus Mortal: Now see how the inversion of the spheres works. Inside the sphere of radius two we have a ball with no surface, a ball of radius 1/pi, which maps to the entire universe beyond the sphere of radius 4pi, with the exception of its center point. Faustus Mortal: The ball of radius 1/pi is a "punctured ball" with no center. Faustina Mortal: No center? Faustus Mortal: The "center point" would have to map to infinity, complex infinity, and that won't happen. The ball maps to the region > 4pi and Faustina Mortal: What of the surface, the skin of the grape. You leave the seed and the skin? Faustus Mortal: Precisely and exactly. And therein lies the secret of the volume of the spherical cone! Faustina Mortal: ah. Faustina Mortal: I can't relate to all this abstract geometry. Faustina Mortal: Can you make it real. Faustus Mortal: It is above real---it is complex, with real and imaginary parts. Faustus Mortal: You religious claim that each instant in time is equidistant from eternity, as if time were a straight line (or railroad tracks) stretching backwards and forward. Two parallel lines meeting only at infinity. Scientists consider time as more of a logarithmic function. Or, perhaps, as the Chi-Square distribution---with a "bob-tail," two tails but one tapering to zero at the origin and the other asymptotically approaching zero at infinity. Yet there are real and complex infinities and they are so different. Faustina Mortal: I am like so confused! Faustus Mortal: It is like this: inside each sphere of radius 4pi is a solid ball of radius 2. Then the inversion of the spheres maps the open ball of radius 1/pi to the entire universe outside of the sphere of radius 4pi. It maps circles to circles, spheres to spheres, but it doesn't touch the origin, so there are no straight lines. And---imagine---each proton, each electron, each point in space is equally distant from the edge of the expanding universe. The center of the proton maps the punctured open ball to all outside the sphere of radius 4pi. But the surface is another matter. Faustina Mortal: You are saying that this open ball is like a grape without skin. A grape whose skin, whose peel is removed and the seed somehow plucked out without passing through the flesh of the fruit? Faustus Mortal: Precisely and exactly. The proton contained a mapping of the universe, then it collapsed to a ball of radius (4pi-1/pi). Still the surface of the ball of radius 1/pi remained invariant. It became a spherical cone, or many spherical cones, of surface area 4pi(1/pi^2). The final formula then became 4pi(4pi-1/pi)(4pi-2/pi). And that is the ratio of the mass of the proton to the mass of the electron. It can also be written, showing the removal of the spherical cone, as (4pi-1/pi)^3 -- (1/pi^2)(4pi-1/pi). Check it out. Faustina Mortal: This is all too much. But, what of the energy problem? How does this relate? The scholars talk the talk but they can't walk the walk. Faustus Mortal: My mind has grown old and weak. I cannot again scale the wall of intransigent, obdurate, obtuse mathematics. Suffice it to say that the proton is like a padlock. The right combination opens the energy. Today the powers-that-be are trying to bust it open with a sledge hammer. That might open it, but it would destroy the very thing that is useful in the first place. =( Faustina Mortal: Do you believe in God? Faustus Mortal: It is a possibility, whatever her name might be. Faustina Mortal: Her? Faustus Mortal: Yes, hehe, "Her." Faustina Mortal: Oh! Faustus Mortal: Some ancients believed that female Wisdom was God. Faustina Mortal: Oh, indeed? Faustina Mortal: You speak of the Big Bang. Can you explain it? Faustus Mortal: I have my consistent, concise, comprehensive theory. Faustina Mortal: Do tell. Faustus Mortal: It might contradict some Christian theology! Faustina Mortal: I still want to hear. Faustina Mortal: "You shall know the Truth and the Truth will set you free." Faustus Mortal: A true statement and worthy of all men to be received. Faustus Mortal: But... Faustina Mortal: "But"? Faustus Mortal: It may not make you happy! Faustus Mortal: And it may even kill you dead. Faustina Mortal: I still want to hear. Faustina Mortal: Tell me how you think the universe came into being. Faustina Mortal: Without the hand of God Almighty! Faustus Mortal: There are some mathematical concepts! Faustus Mortal: You would not understand. Faustina Mortal: Like an open ball being a grape with no skin? Faustus Mortal: Yes, that, and more. Much more even. Faustina Mortal: Continue. Do tell. Faustus Mortal: A very energetic photon, or gamma ray, can enable pair-production. That is, in the presence of matter, a gamma ray may induce the creation of an electron-positron pair. But they soon annihilate each other and produce other gamma rays, usually at lower energy. I claim that in the very beginning there was a lopsided, skewed pair production. The pair was an electron (of radius r) and a huge proto-proton (of radius R = 4*pi*r). And not just one but trillions and trillions. So many in fact that one must use scientific notation to describe them. And they were densely packed into one point and there was no time. Faustina Mortal: No time? Faustus Mortal: Time did not exist. Faustina Mortal: Oh! Faustina Mortal: So there's the grapefruit and the grape. What then? Faustus Mortal: The electron---grapelike as you put it---is a hard, solid ball. The proto-proton has internal structure. The proto-proton is like a ball of radius 2*r inside a sphere of radius R = 4*pi*r. And they are all packed into one point of space. Now the proto-proton can map its interior in various ways. The sphere (from 2*r to 4*pi*r) is like a vacuum and maps to the solid ball. The interior of the ball maps to the sphere but also to everything outside. One uses the Inversion of the Spheres to see this. The interior ball of radius (1/pi)*r maps to the entire universe outside of the sphere of radius 4*pi*r. But there is a singular point. The absolute center cannot map to the boundary of the universe. That is, assuming even that the universe *does* have a boundary. Hehe. Faustina Mortal: And then what happens? Faustus Mortal: The Sphere collapses mapping away the open punctured ball of radius (1/pi)*r and leaving behind the center and the surface. The center point isn't a problem as it attaches itself to the collapsing open set. But the surface of the sphere of radius (1/pi)*r is a problem. It is oriented differently than the surface of the proto-proton. Open solid balls are one thing. Surfaces are another. A surface has orientation. The Moebius strip has one side, one orientation---the Klein bottle only has one surface. Let me draw some pictures. Faustus Mortal draws some diagrams and pictures. Faustina Mortal: Ah! Faustus Mortal: Now the proto-proton is almost the proton that we know. The mapping of the innermost open punctured ball of radius (1/pi)*r expands (as the universe expands) and time is created therefrom. And this is the case for each proto-proton at once. Hence each point in space is equidistant from the expanding boundary of the finite universe. Faustina Mortal: Each moment in time is equidistant from eternity! Faustus Mortal coughs. Faustus Mortal: Shall I continue? Faustina Mortal: Please do. Faustus Mortal: So the spherical cone, whose surface area is (4*pi)*(1/pi)^*r^2 is removed from the collapsing proto-proton. The result is a solid of volume (4*pi/3)*(4*pi-1/pi)^3*r^3 -- (4*pi/3)*(1/pi^2)*(4*pi-1/pi)*r^3. The volume of the electron is (4*pi/3)*r^3. Dividing and simplifying---you do the algebra---gives the mass ratio of the proton to the electron to be 4*pi*(4*pi-1/pi)*(4*pi-2/pi), the r^3 term vanishing completely. It cancels out. And the derivation is done. (And also the foundations of the Ur-atom.) Faustina Mortal: How could it be reversed? Faustus Mortal: Pack all the particles together again. Then the mapping of the inversion sphere of radius (1/pi)*r would push the proton back into a proto-proton and the final object would again be part of a pair, a reversible process. Faustina Mortal: Where would this happen? Faustus Mortal: Only in a huge black hole---the whole universe must be sucked into the hugest black hole. But pounding on the proton will not help. It is a problem of topology---open balls, punctured balls, spheres, surfaces, and all that jazz. Faustina Mortal: Scientists, physicists, and mathematicians say that you are deluded, misguided, and crazy. Faustus Mortal: Perhaps so. But numbers don't lie! Faustina Mortal: Figures don't lie, but liars figure. Faustus Mortal: True and very true. Faustus Mortal: At the initial discovery the number was within one standard deviation of the accepted value. But then they accepted a new value, many, many standard deviations from their original accepted value. (How? Why? And, oh-so secret did they erase the old value.) Faustina Mortal: I think that your theory is full of holes, punctured or otherwise. God created the heavens and the earth. If there were a big bang then it was of his creation. And the physicists say that your maths are just coincidence. Faustus Mortal: Believe them! They are tenured. Faustus Mortal: They once claimed that the earth was flat and that the earth was the absolute center of the universe. They are infallible. Trust them. Faustus Mortal: And pay them well, for it is from the tenured eggheads that our energy quagmire will be settled. I am old and slow. One grows old. =( The Faustus Mortal Versus Octanus Diesel Faustus Mortal: What brings you to this corner of cyberspace Octanus? Faustus Mortal: Run out of Chinese graduate student girls to molest? Octanus Diesel: Ha ha, you never were the one to respect a PhD. Faustus Mortal: Oh, that's not completely true, it's more personal. Octanus Diesel: You are causing me trouble with Congressman Buster. Faustus Mortal: Do you mean "Phil Buster"? Octanus Diesel: You know who. Why ask such an empty question? Faustus Mortal: It's that religious Faustina Mortal. Faustus Mortal: You know that I've parked my pen. Faustus Mortal: There's no profit in saving humankind or... Faustus Mortal: solving the energy conundrum for that matter... Octanus Diesel: But you have no solution. Faustus Mortal: That is because you tossed my ass out of graduate school. Faustus Mortal: You and the Fossil Fuel Fellowship, headed by Ole King Coal. Faustus Mortal: Say that it is not so. Octanus Diesel: If only you had accepted the hegemony of fossil fuels! Octanus Diesel: But no, you wanted something different, non-polluting. Octanus Diesel: Global warming is a myth, a fairy-tale even! Faustus Mortal: Many don't think so any more. It's hard to buy everyone. Faustus Mortal: Some few scientists and scholars accept hard evidence. Faustus Mortal: Even if it doesn't mean a lucrative sinecure or scholarship. Octanus Diesel: There you go again, painting me black. Faustus Mortal: Only the sooty color of coal dust! Octanus Diesel: Enough palaver! Octanus Diesel: If you do have something more than a coincidental number, say! Octanus Diesel: I want more than just some silly number and some rag-tag Octanus Diesel: obtuse, arcane, Byzantine theory. Faustus Mortal coughs. Faustus Mortal: What authority do you have anyway? I don't owe you a thing! Octanus Diesel: Phil Buster isn't pushing for my funding anymore. Octanus Diesel: I need money to research. Faustus Mortal: You mean discover more oil, coal, and natural gas? Octanus Diesel: Precisely and exactly. That's where the future is! Faustus Mortal: I refuse to believe that intelligence life evolved... Faustus Mortal: ... nothing against organized religion... Faustus Mortal: Just to die in its own excrement. Octanus Diesel: Who said anything about dying? The environment will recover. Octanus Diesel: After World War Two we had an environmental holocaust! Octanus Diesel: ---Oil spill, toxic wastes, munitions, etc.--- Octanus Diesel: But things worked out. Fossil Fuel forever! Octanus Diesel: And your theory is predicated on the big bang? Faustus Mortal: Yes, and mappings of open balls to open balls Faustus Mortal: f: o --> O; f maps little-o onto Big-O. Faustus Mortal: "little-o" is in the inversion of the sphere Faustus Mortal: "Big-O{ is the exterior of the sphere. Octanus Diesel: Suppose we even accept your absurd theory. Octanus Diesel: Tell me precisely and exactly how you intend too get energy? Octanus Diesel: So, at moment zero the big sphere formed from some odd Octanus Diesel: lopsided pair production, as you claim. How to reverse it? Octanus Diesel: I grant that there could be nearly limitless clean energy. Octanus Diesel: But how would you harness it? Tell me that! Faustus Mortal: I am not 100% certain---I have some ideas however. Octanus Diesel: So all you have is an equation and some vague, random thoughts. Faustus Mortal: Perhaps had you not booted me from graduate school in physics... Octanus Diesel: So now it's all my fault? Faustus Mortal: Not exactly. But I would think that varying the spin Faustus Mortal: From plus to minus and back, again and again, Faustus Mortal: might make the proton look like a Boson instead of a Fermion Faustus Mortal: With spin zero Octanus Diesel: Resonance? Faustus Mortal: No, not at all. Resonance is linear, this is non-linear! Faustus Mortal: It is more like a non-linear driver to bifurcation Octanus Diesel: You have no idea how to do this or if it would even work! Faustus Mortal: True, you and the Fossil Fuel Fellowship control everything. Faustus Mortal: With all the resources under your control Octanus Diesel interrupts. Octanus Diesel: There is but one energy solution: fossil fuels! Octanus Diesel: And there is much oil, gas, and coal. Octanus Diesel: We just need to drill, pump, and refine! Octanus Diesel: Those tree-huggers and eco-terrorists are destroying us. Octanus Diesel: Back to your absurd theory. Octanus Diesel: Suppose, for sake of argument, that at the big bang it did happen as you say. The original pair was created: electron and proto-proton. And suppose that the proto-proton mapped creating all space by the inversion of the spheres and all that jazz about spherical ice cream cones. Faustus Mortal coughs. Octanus Diesel: For sake of argument, wouldn't you need at least the pressure of a black hole in space to reverse the process? That is to "map back" the inverted open ball you talk about of radius (1/pi)? No way anyone could do that in a laboratory. Maybe you do have the ultimate equation for the Big Bang. OK, fine. But then, what good is it if all you have is a number? Like some warlock you claim to undo creation by murmuring God's name backwards? Whatever her name might be? NORAHS. Hehe Faustus Mortal: When I was enrolled in graduate school in physics, I maxed out every course. None was better than I in the laboratory. I had stellar GRE scores and amazed even veteran professors with my insight and maths. But age has taken a severe toll. I can only say that given an opportunity that there is a possibility, perhaps not much. But for sure, what are you offering? Old King Coal? Carbon Dioxide entrapped in stone? Won't that just remove Oxygen? That is a solution? I can't see it. And you are pedaling Coal and oil. Faustina Octanus Diesel: Yes. And there is plenty of oil in the USA. Only the EPA prohibits its drilling, extracting, and refining. We could easily be totally self-sufficient, but for the cluck and jerks in the EPA. They let forests grow old and burn rather than harvest worthwhile timber. Billions burn to worthless ash and nobody profits. Better to log the forest and reduce the national debt. But no, they would rather wallow in worthless ash and hug burned out tree stumps. I say that they have their reward. Faustus Mortal: You say that you care nothing of the environment? Octanus Diesel: I would say that I care more about human beings than animals. Octanus Diesel: Or some silly species that can't adapt. Octanus Diesel: Would you rather go hungry to preserve some shiftless skunk? Octanus Diesel: Would you give up your house to some hoard of insects? Octanus Diesel: I think not. That's not the American way. Octanus Diesel: At least, not IMHO! Faustus Mortal: I see hope. Faustus Mortal: If I only could master more and deeper knowledge. Octanus Diesel: You had your chance. But you blew it. Octanus Diesel: You could have been one with the Fossil Fuel Fellowship. Octanus Diesel: You could have had your cake and eaten it too! Octanus Diesel: Now see! You have lost all in your quest for purity of purpose. Faustus Mortal: There are younger scientists and mathematicians who can't be bought. Octanus Diesel and Phil Buster Phil Buster: An old woman said the worst things about me yesterday. Phil Buster: I am not a servant of petroleum or the coal industry! Phil Buster: And this reclusive cenobite---whatever he's doing---is not being suppressed or repressed. But what I do want to know, Professor Diesel, and want honestly to know, is this: "Does this funny formula about the Big Bang have any merit whatsoever? Octanus Diesel: Of course not. It is just coincidence. Pure and simple. Phil Buster: But it talks about higher mathematics and some theory. Octanus Diesel: Claptrap! It is nothing but smoke and mirrors. He has some accidental coincidence---with three terms it could approximate anything---and that is all there is to it! Phil Buster: Are you 100% certain of that? I don't want organized religion to accuse me of failing to preserve the environment or concealing some energy source. Today the eco-terrorists and tree-huggers are noisier than ever. The ridiculous price of gasoline has brought them into a militant posture. Octanus Diesel: True, there are social pressures to pump more crude oil from capped wells and protected regions. There is ample oil, only the EPA prevents drilling. Refineries are needed, but they are also denied. The EPA acts like an oriental potentate. They are elevating the fuel prices for everyone. Phil Buster: Be careful! Many of the religious, righteous, reverend, and retired believe in ecology, global warming, and endangered species. Octanus Diesel: What about the Human Species---Homo Sapiens---aren't we even more endangered at the gas pump? Tell me it isn't so! Phil Buster: It is true. There are rumblings of voter revolt. They only seek some prophet of energy and see the windfall profit of big oil companies. Phil Buster: But this pesky lesion, this sore that won't seem to heal, this cut that won't scab---claiming cheap, copious, clean energy by some crushing of a proton. How may it be put away once and for all? Phil Buster: It is a problem. And I don't want to be another "Pope Urban VIII," who banned the works of Galileo Galilei, had him imprisoned, and forced him to recant the heliocentric theory. The world will forever remember Pope Urban VIII as Simplicus the Fool rather than a religious father of the Faith. The earth is not flat like a pancake; it is spherical like an orange. The earth goes around the sun and not vice versa. But you are a tenured professor of physics, Professor Octanus Diesel. Surely you can silence this absurdity with science or force it to the forefront and expose it to the light of day. Octanus Diesel: Faustus is a bluff. He has no science behind him. He only has a very unusual coincidence. In the academic cloister he would be ridiculed. Of course he doesn't return to academia! He hides behind his constitutional right of free speech to snipe at the legitimate scientific community. Would he ever try to publish? Of course not! He would be exposed for the charlatan that he is. As for his claim that the so-called Fossil Fuel Fellowship "cast him out of academia," that is fantasy, a pure fabrication. Fossil fuel is the way of the past, the present, and the future. Global warming is an urban myth, a fallacy, and a dramatic delusion whipped up by the news media! Phil Buster: So, Professor Diesel, what should be done with the theories of this errant scientist---the reincarnation of Dr. Hans Zarkoff of Flash Gordon? What is your solution? You represent tenured science and the learned journals! Octanus Diesel: Flash Gordon is a comic strip character. This pseudomath [sic] has no champion like the professional football player Flash Gordon or the high-breasted prototype heroine Dale Arden. My recommendation to you is simple. Ignore this rubbish. It is pure claptrap and coincidence. Support the learned societies and those of us tenured and sitting in places of authority. You won't be disappointed. Octanus Buster smiles. Octanus Diesel and Faustina Mortal Faustina Mortal: Octanus Diesel, the people are suffering. Octanus Diesel: What is that to me? Faustina Mortal: The cost of gasoline, petrol, has gone up. Octanus Diesel: Do I look like a politician? Go talk to Phil Buster. Faustina Mortal: Surely you and your Fossil Fuel Fellowship can do something? Octanus Diesel: Not as long as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stands in our way. There is plenty of oil in the continental United States. There are producing wells that are capped. We are prohibited from drilling, refining, exploring, and producing by some bunch of tree-hugging bureaucrats. Faustina Mortal: Bureaucrats you say? There is oil? Octanus Diesel: Yes, plenty. We have 660,000 oil wells in the United States. Only five percent of them are producing. Another fifteen percent are capped because oil was so cheap at one time. There are vast new oilfields as well. But the EPA prohibits drilling, exploration, refining. Already there are oil wells enough to supply all of the USA for the next sixty years. But they are capped and EPA forbids their use. We have oil aplenty in the USA. But the government is trying to destroy the American people for crass, selfish profit. Faustina Mortal: I don't understand? Why inflict suffering? Aren't they elected by the people? Octanus Mortal: They are, in some sense of the word. But they are also owned by special interests. In some sense of the word, "we have the best government that money can buy." Faustina Mortal: What of History? Don't the elected officials fear the judgment of History? What of the Church? Will they escape final damnation? Octanus Diesel: God, sure, what about God? What's her name anyway? Octanus Diesel: Now I do believe in a supreme being, whatever her name is. There was even a sultry redhead in some movie—was it "The Fifth Element"? And I agree with Faustus that intelligent life did not evolve just to perish. He looks at the chemical evolution, the isotope (nuclear) evolution, and finally the penultimate quintessential evolution to the direct conversion of mass to energy. But his is just theory. We are talking reality. How expensive must gas get and how many will starve before the EPA will give up its draconian control? Thousands, millions, a billion? And who will answer? The tree-huggers? They are parasites on society. Social parasites, I say. Let's give the oil companies the green light! Faustina Mortal: You have a convincing argument. Faustina Mortal: But what of the global warming zealots and ecologists, environmentalists, and conservationists are a loud bunch of chatterboxes? You would have to appeal to the masses. Octanus Diesel: And, "the masses are asses" Faustina Mortal: The voice of the people is the voice of God: Vox populi, vox dei. Has that not always been the way, the truth, and the light? Octanus Diesel: See that I am honest. See the map and the oil wells capped but still able to produce---oilfields already mapped and explored in the USA even. There has been one trillion barrels extracted from the earth all and all from the earliest automobiles until today. And, we do perfectly know, that there are two trillion barrels more waiting to be extracted and refined. But the EPA will not allow it. And many are starving, rioting for food, but the television hides the truth. Only PBS---the Public Broadcasting Station---gives the BBC news to the masses. But they ignore it, wanting CNN and Fox. [They are] substituting rhetoric for facts and a heaving bosom as the bellows of the deity. My words may seem harsh. But they are true. And Nature herself, contrary to the anecdotal musings of the eggheads, can absorb and reprocess that Carbon Dioxide. Life is less fragile and more robust than the tenured pedants would have you believe. Only their lives are fragile in their ivory towers, secluded. The Vision "Tell a vision to no one," it has been written. For sure there are many futurists with ideas of utopia and serendipity. But most realists see the world as overpopulated, polluted, and stagnant with a tiny minority of extremely wealthy families and the rest simply struggling masses. But it need not be that way. What would be a "best case scenario," given free will? Mankind may find itself inferior to androids, artificial intelligence, and other machines; but, lower than the angels of technology, mankind does have free will. That does not mean that man is willing to employ this free will. It is written in Holy Scripture that "You shall know the Truth and the Truth will set you free." But it is also true that the truth may not make you happy. How could transportation evolve in the best of worlds? The car would still have an internal combustion (or internal detonation) engine. Most probably taking hydrogen and oxygen and yielding water in the form of steam. There would be no need for paved roads in an urban environment. Cars would have small wheels for occasional use or in rural areas. Around time they would elevate magnetically. The paved roads would be green again and flowering plant would replace asphalt. Only sidewalks would remain for delivery, loading and unloading, and skateboarding, walking, and the like. All-in-all this could be a very pleasant environment. The exhaust would condense as water droplets, cooling and southing the flora and fauna. Water is nearly infinitely recyclable. The waste water from a neighborhood would be pumped deep into the bowels of the earth were it would be boiled into steam and condensed back into the purest distilled water. The solid waste would be recycled or "burned" into Carbon Dioxide. Yes, some hydrocarbons still will need to be degraded into Carbon Dioxide. But much waste will also be converted into Methane, Propane, or Butane and returned as a heating fuel. Carbon Dioxide is not an enemy. In reasonable doses the plants can easily consume it. In fact, the flora needs some Carbon Dioxide to survive. Who today would use a table of five-place logarithms to extract a cube root? Or even use that crazy algorithm to find a square root. Many professors of mathematics today would balk at manual calculation of a square root. There are purists, to be sure. But they are a dwindling minority. Who is studying Latin these days, by the way? Minor medical, dental, small appliance repairs, automobile trouble-shooting, financial matters, medicines and their side effects, security, and all those things will be automated and handled by the family android. No more will cleaning, disinfecting, and scouring be a human task. But the android has no free will. Yet what will become of religion? One could ask if the android, being the logical replacement to the walker or wheel chair, would not also find sanctuary in the arms of organized religion. For sure it was only a short while ago that the very Christian Church would not permit women to teach, preach, or hold positions of authority over men. Now we see mainstream churches with women and openly gay bishops. Cannot one extrapolate the emergence of the android in the house of worship as well? Perhaps free will is not such a human monopoly after all? Perhaps any sentient being can evolve free will. Medical advancement will be more and more removed from human hands. Humans make mistakes. Machines do not need malpractice insurance. The probability of success is calculated with some margin or error, some confidence interval, and the patient can "take it or leave it." With very high probabilities of success, most will enjoy the recovery, albeit they might miss the "bedside manner." Faustina Again Faustus Mortal: Not you again! Faustus Mortal: What part of "no" is it that you don't understand? Faustina Mortal: Human beings are starving; the economy is in trouble! Faustus Mortal: And what does that have to do with me? Faustina Mortal: You have one possible solution. Faustus Mortal guffaws. Faustus Mortal: According to the scholars and teachers I am full of malarkey. Faustus Mortal: Haven't they told you that my ideas are hog wash? Faustina Mortal: They offer no solution, other that to suffer. Faustus Mortal: Isn't that all the Christian or Catholic Church has also? Faustus Mortal: Did the church ever give up on claiming that the earth is flat? Faustus Mortal: Or accept the heliocentric model for the solar system? Faustina Mortal: You are confusing the issue with facts. Faustus Mortal: Well, EXCUSE me. Faustina Mortal: I am a canonized saint. Faustus Mortal: I got that much. So, what? Faustina Mortal: Whatsoever we bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Faustina Mortal: And, whatsoever we loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Faustus Mortal: And that means to me? Faustina Mortal: If you do not apply your craft to solve the energy and food dilemmas then you will risk final damnation. Faustus Mortal answers sarcastically. Faustus Mortal: Let me get right on it then. Faustina Mortal frowns. Faustus Mortal: Look, I don't want to be rude, but I have worked as a member of the proletariat in the USA for over fifty years. I have paid money into the Social Security system. I have contributed my "fair share" at work to charities, donated blood, given a tithe to the church (which is far more than most and they have never given me the time of day in return), and never turned down a hungry beggar on the street. What you are asking is severe mental effort. And not cheap either! You would have me buy expensive books and waste a fortune on tuition. But wait! They won't even let me sit in an empty chair in their lectures, let alone have a voice. So, dammit[sic], I've off your hook! Faustina Mortal: It is God's will. Faustus Mortal sneers. Faustus Mortal: And what is her name? Faustina Mortal: If not you, then what of your student. Faustina Mortal: What was his name? "Taurus"? Faustus Mortal: Something like that. Faustus Mortal: He has a job, a wife, a kid, and a mortgage. Faustus Mortal: What would his mortgage say to him for spending money? Faustus Mortal: Your holy prayers, oblations, and supplications got him there. Faustus Mortal: And he thinks that Sharon Stone, with her IQ of 154, discovered the mathematical model for the proton and conceived of the formula for the mass ratio of the proton to the electron. Faustina Mortal: And she didn't. Faustus Mortal: Does it matter? She won't step up and own it! Faustus Mortal: It's all "mind over matter." Faustina Mortal: Not, "spirit over mind and matter?" Faustus Mortal: Mind over matter. Faustus Mortal: She don't mind 'coz we don't matter! [sic] Faustus Mortal laughs. Faustina Mortal pouts. Faustus Mortal: So, you see, your threats don't intimidate me. Faustus Mortal: After all, I am just an avatar, a talking puppet. Faustina Mortal: Don't you have free will? Faustus Mortal: Does that have anything to do with free sex? Faustina Mortal: Disgusting. You are disgusting! Faustus Mortal: Thank you, sister. Faustina Mortal: The poor are starving in poor lands. Faustus Mortal: I have fathered no children into this world. Faustus Mortal: I would not bring a child into the world if I could not support it. Where is the responsibility? A man who is willing to have children should take inventory and see that he can feed, clothe, educate, and care for them. Why should a man have a child and expect some stranger to bear his burden? Where is the justice there? A man wants the joy and pleasure of children but is unwilling to shoulder the responsibility and the church expects some dumb round-eye to play the fool and pay for another's fun and pleasure and suffer the ridicule and scorn of the working class? It seems silly to me. Or is there something I'm missing in all of this? Faustina Mortal: Joseph was a Saint for being a father to Christ. Faustus Mortal: I am no saint. Faustina Mortal: Don't you want a place in heaven? Faustus Mortal: You seem to think the belief in life after death is universal. Faustus Mortal: "tain't so." [sic] Faustina Mortal: You have said that direct conversion to mass to energy could give rise to gasoline at twenty-five cents a gallon (plus tax), water potable from the tap (potable), and electricity too cheap to measure (a flat rate for all). Why not pursue it? Faustus Mortal: Because I'm tired of working. What does holy scripture say? Faustus Mortal: "Threescore and ten are a man's years," Faustus Mortal: "And even if he lives to fourscore, it profits him naught." Faustus Mortal: And you would have others retire and enjoy golden years, Faustus Mortal: but have me work and pursue some abstract theme until I die? Faustus Mortal: That is "god's justice"? Whatever is HER name anyway. Faustus Mortal: She sounds like the "basic five" of a California girl: Faustus Mortal: (1) new car full of gas; (2) plenty of money to spend; (3) no restrictions whatsoever on where she goes or what she does, (4) no job, either at home or in an office; and (5) a husband who works all day long then comes home and does the housework. That is the typical California "drama queen." Faustina Mortal: You don't understand hunger and starvation. Faustus Mortal: I do understand life and death. Faustina Mortal: Would you risk final damnation? Faustus Mortal: Is that some video game? Faustina Mortal: You think that the Holy See is some amusement theme park? Faustus Mortal: As a matter of fact... Faustus Mortal: You pester me to death. Faustus Mortal: Want to hear a joke? Faustina Mortal pouts. Faustus Mortal: "pi" and "i" were chatting. "pi" being a transcendental irrational number, 3.1415926535898... and "i" being the square root of minus one. So "i" says to "pi": Get rational. And "pi" retorts to "i": Get real. Yuck, yuck, yuck! Faustina Mortal: Not funny. We are talking real problems here. Faustus Mortal: If I offer you a deal with the Devil herself, will you go away once and for all and not bother me anymore? Faustina Mortal: Speak! Faustus Mortal: If that Lady Sharon Stone will own up publicly and in a refereed scientific or mathematical journal to the approximation 4pi(4pi-1/pi)(4pi-2/pi) then I will forsake all other prose and poetry and devote my full attention to the relativistic quantum theory behind her approximation. If not, forget it! Faustina Mortal: Is the theory correct? I will ask.