Status Quo vs. The Party Of Change

"...two important aspects of inorganic chemistry (in fact, of chemistry in general) are structure and reactivity.  Someone has said that all of physical science consists of this duality. In physics we could speak of statics and dynamics, and by analogy in everyday life, the status quo and change."

~James E. Huheey Inorganic Chemistry: Principles of Structure and Reactivity 2nd Ed

Yoga practice fits nicely into that dichotomy when juxtaposed with aerobic exercise. Yoga is rather static and structural, consisting of lots of stretched poses. Cross-country skiing--which I've done a lot of lately -- is very dynamic. I'm now doing both on a daily basis. 

Another analogy is political: Conservatism is inherently status quo; the other wing is by nature about change and dynamics. Best to take a little of both in measured doses. 

SCOTUS is like the New Testament

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. ~Ecclesiastes 1:9 (KJV)

The Supreme Court echoed Ecclesiastes' "new thing under the sun" language in a case concerning the patentabilty of oil-eating bacteria, i.e., a species of living things engineered by humans. The decision recited:

The Committee Reports accompanying the 1952 [Patent] Act inform us that Congress intended statutory subject matter to "include anything under the sun that is made by man."
~Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S., 303 (1980)

Compare "there is no new thing under the sun" with "anything under the sun that is made by man."  Novelty was inherent in the Supreme Court's phrase because they were construing 35 U.S.C. § 101, which provides:

Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.*

SCOTUS affirmed that micro-organisms constituted a composition of matter within the meaning of the statute.

Can we reconcile SCOTUS with the Old Testament?  Yes, if we consider Ecclesiastes to refer to matter per se and not to compositions of matter. New chemical compounds, even living organisms, are just old atoms put together in new ways.

On the other hand, SCOTUS was also saying that there was such a thing as something new under the sun, so long as it was made by man.
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*Emphasis added. The language came from Jefferson, but he originally used the term "art" for "process."

Who Knows Where The Time Goes?

Dust Bunny Queen linked this video in a comment, which got me all interested in Sandy Denny. Sandy Denny recorded a duet with Robert Plant. I failed to acknowledge her back here: link

As for the question "Who Knows Where The Time Goes?"  I suspect that time is conserved somehow, like other physical quantities such as energy.

Thanks DBQ!

A Conservative Notion of Mass*

I find the designation of the Higgs Boson particle as the "God Particle" amusing. Amusing because I associate God particles with the lighter particles--the ones that defy measurement by virtue of their zero-point energy.

Zero-point energy is like Freud's terms das Ich, das Es, and das Über-Ich, which resounded better in German. As originally posited by Einstein, zero-point energy is that residual energy present in matter even at absolute zero Kelvin.  Those who don't believe in absolutes should ponder temperature scales--there are no negative degrees Kelvin. Anyway, even at zero Kelvin, atoms like hydrogen, the most abundant element, still have energy. If uncertain as to why, consult Heisenberg.
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*Lavoisier gave us the notion of Conservation of Mass--before he was beheaded by his government.

The Problem is...

...playing the role of idiot-savant is sustainable--sort of like bookending things. Wouldn't it be nice to be all things between?  Easier said than done. Conservation of something demands that moving to a more well-rounded person must involve sucking inwards from both sides of the bookends. That sucks.

A Conservative Notion of Symmetry: Occupy Orbitals

The conservative notion of symmetry is that hand fits glove, plug fits socket, but only in specific ways. Hydrogen for example, will not simply saturate a C=C double bond all by its lonesome, e.g.:

H₂ + CH₂=CH₂ ---> CH₃-CH₃.

The orbital symmetry is all wrong. The chemistry is forbidden.

The reaction requires a catalyst to break the symmetry and to polarize the electorate. How nature really works (at a chemical level) is polarization followed by attack followed by depolarization.

A Conservative Notion of Energy

Julius von Mayer (1814-1878)

The relation between food and work is intuitive: eat or die.* We also think that overeating can be offset by exercise and modern treadmills enable this thinking by showing us calories burned. And while the relation between food and work now seems intuitive, the equivalence of heat and work--or more precisely their interconversion--was a non obvious deduction.

Non obvious because work seems focused--while heat seems dispersed. It took centuries of sustained effort by thinkers and scientists to get us where we are today: that heat and work are equivalent and can interconvert.  Along the way, one man nearly took his own life for want of attention: Julius von Mayer.  His story involved blood, and indirectly, iron. To him we owe the First Law of Thermodynamics:

Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. It can only change forms

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*The German verb sterben, to die, is etymologically linked to our verb to starve.