tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6504916202729942122024-03-14T14:21:28.413+05:30Casual TechnologyUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-49542477913800669602024-01-24T06:07:00.019+05:302024-01-24T06:13:32.296+05:30Transcending Physicalism<p> If you are someone who has the ability to think, a world view rooted in <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/Archives/Win2004/entries/physicalism/#:~:text=Physicalism%20is%20the%20thesis%20that,everything%20supervenes%20on%20the%20physical." target="_blank">physicalism</a> will be insufficient to explain what you observe in the world, at some point in your life.</p><p>I've covered physicalism in detail in a few posts previously. Not because I believe in it, but just to understand it thoroughly.</p><p>Let us look at the viewpoints of <a href="https://www.brucegreyson.com" target="_blank">Dr. Bruce Greyson</a> , a licensed psychiatrist and professor at UVA, who has been researching NDEs (Near Death Experiences) for about 50 years.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="366" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NsbiB-Ipc3E" width="488" youtube-src-id="NsbiB-Ipc3E"></iframe></div><br /><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-64961544349486008842023-06-17T22:15:00.003+05:302023-06-17T22:56:25.251+05:30Physicalism - II<p>Physicalism and Objective Realism are useful tools but they say as much about the true nature of 'external objective reality' as Newton's Laws.</p><p>Physicalism (the belief that the world is fundamentally composed of physical entities) and objective realism (the belief that there's an objective reality independent of consciousness) are foundational to much of modern science.</p><p>However, these philosophies also have limitations. They can struggle to account for certain phenomena, particularly those related to consciousness and perception. As our scientific understanding progresses and we delve deeper into the mysteries of the universe, from the vast realms of cosmology to the tiny world of quantum mechanics, we are discovering that reality may be more complex and strange than the straightforward physicalist or objective realist perspectives can fully encompass.</p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>A colourless, silent, tasteless reality....</b></span></p><p>The investigation comes down to 'inherent properties of the physical world independent of an observer', to establish what inherent qualities exist in 'Objective Reality'.</p><p>Observations:</p><p>1. The physical world has radiation of different wavelengths, but no colour. <i>Colour is a quale. </i></p><p>2. The physical world has only pressure waves, but no sound. <i>Sound is a quale.</i> </p><p>3. Physical substances have no taste. The brain experiences 'taste'. <i>Taste is a quale.</i></p><p><span>4. Colour is not an inherent property of objects, but a result of how our eyes perceive different wavelengths of light. It is a quale.</span></p><p><span>5. Sound is not something that exists in the world independent of an observer, but a perception created in our brains in response to patterns of pressure waves in the air. Sound is a quale.</span></p><p><b style="font-size: x-large;">Could it ever have been different...?</b></p><p>Answer: No.</p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Does 'Objective Reality' have anything 'solid' in it? Are physical objects 'solid'?</b></span></p><p><br /></p><p>On a fundamental level, what we perceive as "solid" is mostly empty space. The solidity we experience is a result of the electromagnetic forces at work on a microscopic scale. </p><p><span style="background-color: #660000;">In an atom, electrons create a "shell" around the nucleus, and the electromagnetic repulsion between these electron shells is what we perceive as solidity. </span></p><p>An atom is mostly empty space. The nucleus of an atom is incredibly small compared to the size of the atom itself. If an atom were the size of a stadium, for instance, its nucleus would be about the size of a pea in the centre, and the rest would be empty space, except for the incredibly tiny electrons whizzing around - which no one has seen and will most probably never see.</p><p>In terms of quantum mechanics, particles aren't just little balls bouncing around, they're also waves and exist in a state of superposition, being in many places at once, until measured or observed. </p><p><i>Solidness is a quale.</i></p><p>All these concepts challenge the traditional notions of what's solid, what's real, and what objective reality is. </p><p>Conclusions:</p><p>1. Colour is a quale.</p><p>2. Sound is a quale.</p><p>3. Taste is a quale.</p><p>4. Solidness is a quale.</p><p>A quale is something you experience. It is not an inherent property of 'Objective Reality'.</p><p>In philosophy of mind, "qualia" (singular: "quale") is a term used to refer to the subjective, experiential aspects of consciousness. </p><p>Qualia are what it is like to have a particular experience. They are the "raw feels" of experience, like the redness of seeing a red apple, the sourness of tasting a lemon, or the feeling of solidity when you touch a solid object.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-9238320164677924852023-05-08T04:19:00.003+05:302023-05-11T04:49:35.361+05:30A look at Physicalism<p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Physicalism is a philosophical position that holds that everything that exists is fundamentally physical or material in nature. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">According to physicalism, all phenomena, including mental processes, emotions, and consciousness, can ultimately be explained in terms of physical processes or properties, such as those described by the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology. This view contrasts with dualism, which posits that there are both physical and non-physical (or mental) substances, and idealism, which holds that reality is primarily mental or immaterial.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Physicalism has its roots in the empiricist tradition of philosophy, which emphasizes the role of observation and experience in acquiring knowledge. It is closely related to materialism, which has a similar focus on the physical world but may differ in some nuances.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>There are different forms of physicalism, including reductive and non-reductive varieties. </i></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Reductive physicalism</i> posits that mental states and properties can be completely reduced to, or explained by, physical states and properties. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Non-reductive physicalism</i>, on the other hand, argues that while mental states depend on physical states, they cannot be fully reduced to them.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Physicalism has been a dominant position in the philosophy of mind and metaphysics, particularly in the 20th and 21st centuries. It is often seen as compatible with the scientific worldview and has been supported by advances in neuroscience and other sciences that study the relationship between the mind and the physical world.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Problems with Physicalism:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">1. <u>The hard problem of consciousness,</u> posed by philosopher David Chalmers, asks why and how subjective experiences (qualia) arise from physical processes in the brain. While physicalism may offer explanations for the correlations between brain states and subjective experiences, it has not yet provided a fully satisfactory account of how and why subjective experiences emerge from brain activity.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">2. <u>Decoherence:</u> The transition from the quantum scale to the macroscopic scale, where objects exhibit classical, deterministic behaviour, this transition is not defined by a specific scale or size but rather by the emergence of classical behaviour from the underlying quantum phenomena.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The process that links the quantum and classical worlds is called "decoherence." </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Decoherence occurs when a quantum system interacts with its environment, causing the superposition of quantum states to break down and the system to behave more classically. In essence, the quantum effects are "washed out" by interactions with the surrounding environment, and the system starts to exhibit classical behaviour.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The scale at which constituent particles behave classically is determined by the extent to which decoherence takes place. Due to the large number of particles in a physical object and their constant interactions with each other and their environment, the quantum effects become negligible, and the object behaves as a classical object with a well-defined position, size, and shape.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">There isn't a specific scale at which the transition from quantum to classical behaviour occurs. Instead, the emergence of classical behaviour in macroscopic objects, is a result of decoherence brought about by the interactions between particles and their environment. This process effectively "hides" the underlying quantum nature of the particles and gives rise to the appearance of an objective, classical reality.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-57729410815737282322023-03-23T18:33:00.036+05:302023-03-29T02:34:03.928+05:30Gazing at the sub Planck Length realm using Philosophy of Science<i>(With inputs from ChatGPT)</i><br><br>
<b>Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) argued that we could only have knowledge of the world as it appears to us (phenomena) and not the world as it is in itself (noumena). </b>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29v2xl/AVvXsEiruROGh_2AVbRBCGHqwOlb3hcVkN4iSUimacNIDDw6oG7UcQ_S5gCz3rGus2SL8Jz6j90DCaO6AVBtM_gsSOiFkE3igPjoKrExwY9ZDa1oYIGcO42X2QcKqzt8z5qi3mbTWYYzChS9ie1WeqhGPFrVblG3W1gfs_yQAf7CXuxToaNfRnrxUhy1Z6Xt/s418/perception.gif" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: left; float: left;" width="35%"><img alt="" border="0" width="85%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiruROGh_2AVbRBCGHqwOlb3hcVkN4iSUimacNIDDw6oG7UcQ_S5gCz3rGus2SL8Jz6j90DCaO6AVBtM_gsSOiFkE3igPjoKrExwY9ZDa1oYIGcO42X2QcKqzt8z5qi3mbTWYYzChS9ie1WeqhGPFrVblG3W1gfs_yQAf7CXuxToaNfRnrxUhy1Z6Xt/s320/perception.gif"></a></div><b>In other words, noumena represent things in themselves that are beyond our direct experience, whereas phenomena are the appearances or manifestations of those things that we can perceive and understand.</b> <div><br></div><div>A nice article on the Kantian perspective of noumena & phenomena is at <a href="https://allzermalmer.wordpress.com/2012/02/26/kant-s-phenomena-and-noumena/">Allzermalmer</a>. </div><div><br></div><div>Another interesting description(below), it's inspired by the Kantian point of view though it's a description in terms of the lens of human emotions.<a href="https://dereferer.me/?ohwV6eZVVodl0Pg_n4DR4DPnPxWwR8_R7jGKJEleg_KLEoL5wqpK50WGdzWnNbD3n6nZ4P20qn3Bn-x"> Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy</a>. Schopenhauer was a German philosopher who was deeply influenced by Immanuel Kant:</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCM1RpgneTNzVoXQJH9QaZsoObVwId0Ddi9ILoqGmSpP9fl2XM2zXP_FIU58qrZhm9d9Sc0rjhtT42jurvGjuEZxnxlOA5VfNZbfzRU4242Sj20JUNSm7wpKcw4EnwNcuT6E_69E4yNBrp/s1600/1679595620446413-0.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCM1RpgneTNzVoXQJH9QaZsoObVwId0Ddi9ILoqGmSpP9fl2XM2zXP_FIU58qrZhm9d9Sc0rjhtT42jurvGjuEZxnxlOA5VfNZbfzRU4242Sj20JUNSm7wpKcw4EnwNcuT6E_69E4yNBrp/s1600/1679595620446413-0.png" width="94%">
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(Brief commentary on the above: The Schopenhauerian progression in "Tristan and Isolde" can be seen as an artistic exploration of the human experience and the underlying Will, <b>which is related to the realm of noumena in Immanuel Kant's philosophy</b>. The opera delves into the <b>deep emotional and metaphysical aspects of human existence</b>, providing a glimpse into the world beyond mere appearances or phenomena.)<br><br>
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<br><br><b>And now, let us take a quick look at Henri Poincaré's worldview and then use it to gaze at the realm below the PLANCK LENGTH:</b><div><br><b>
Henri Poincaré </b>(1854-1912) a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, and philosopher of science, however, revised Kant's view in a more optimistic direction. He believed that while we may not be able to directly access the noumena or unobservable entities postulated by scientific theories, <i>we could still indirectly gain knowledge about them through the study of their relations or structure. In Poincaré's structuralist view, scientific theories offer a way to describe and understand the structure of the world, even if we cannot directly observe all the entities involved.</i><br><br><u>
And this brings us to a very intriguing aspect of Physics, the PLANCK LENGTH. What could lie below it, could Poincaré's philosophy help here?</u><br><br>
While it's not possible to provide a definitive answer about what could lie below the Planck length from Poincaré's perspective, we can try to relate his ideas of noumena and phenomena to our current understanding of the Planck length and theoretical physics.<br><br>
The Planck length (about 1.6 x 10^-35 metres) is the smallest meaningful length scale in current theoretical physics, which arises from combining fundamental constants like the gravitational constant, Planck's constant, and the speed of light. <b>At or below this length scale, our understanding of space and time, as described by classical and quantum theories, breaks down. </b>It is generally believed that a complete theory of quantum gravity is required to describe phenomena at such scales.<br><br><b>
In the context of Poincaré's views on noumena and phenomena, one might argue that the Planck length represents a boundary between what we can currently describe as phenomena (our current scientific understanding of the world) and what might be considered noumena (unobservable aspects of the world that are beyond our current theoretical framework).</b><br><br>
Since Poincaré emphasised the importance of structural relationships in understanding scientific theories, it is possible that he would have been open to the idea that a new theoretical framework, such as a successful theory of quantum gravity, could provide us with an indirect understanding of what lies below the Planck length. This would be in line with his belief that we can gain knowledge about unobservable entities through their structural properties.<br><br>
However, Poincaré's views were developed in a different scientific context, and his ideas on noumena and phenomena might not map perfectly onto modern theoretical physics. The specific details of what lies below the Planck length would depend on the development of a complete theory of quantum gravity, which remains an open question in contemporary physics.<br><br>
Poincaré lived between 1854 and 1912, a period that saw significant developments in mathematics and physics, but many of the key concepts and theories we now consider fundamental, such as quantum mechanics and general relativity, had not yet been developed or were in their infancy.<br><br>
The concepts of noumena and phenomena, as discussed by Poincaré and Kant, pertain to the distinction between things as they are in themselves (noumena) and the way those things appear to us (phenomena). While these philosophical concepts can still be relevant to modern discussions in the philosophy of science, they might not perfectly align with the more specific and detailed concepts in contemporary theoretical physics.
<br><br>
For example, modern theoretical physics deals with a variety of phenomena that were not known or understood in Poincaré's time, such as the behaviour of particles and fields in quantum mechanics. <br><br>
<!--<i>The beauty of Constructive Empiricism...</i><br><br>
Constructive empiricism is a philosophical position on scientific theories developed by Bas van Fraassen in his 1980 book, "The Scientific Image." It is a form of empiricism that emphasises the role of empirical evidence in the development and evaluation of scientific theories. According to constructive empiricism, the aim of science is not to provide a true description of the world, but rather to construct empirically adequate theories that can account for observable phenomena.<br><br>
In the context of noumena and phenomena, constructive empiricism can be seen as focusing primarily on phenomena, the aspects of reality that are accessible to our experience and observation. Constructive empiricists argue that scientific theories should be judged based on their ability to predict and explain observable phenomena, rather than on their ability to provide a true description of unobservable entities (noumena).<br><br>
This position contrasts with scientific realism, which holds that the aim of science is to provide an accurate description of both observable and unobservable aspects of the world, including the underlying entities or mechanisms that give rise to observable phenomena. According to scientific realists, unobservable entities posited by scientific theories (noumena) can be considered as real and knowable, even if we cannot directly observe them.<br><br>
Constructive empiricism, by focusing on the empirical adequacy of scientific theories, avoids making claims about the existence or knowability of noumena. Instead, it maintains that science should be concerned with constructing theories that can successfully account for observable phenomena, without necessarily committing to the reality of the underlying unobservable entities or structures.<br><br>
In this view, the distinction between noumena and phenomena becomes less central to the philosophy of science, as constructive empiricism prioritises empirical adequacy over providing a true account of the underlying reality. However, it's worth noting that this position does not deny the existence of noumena; it merely refrains from making claims about their reality or knowability based on scientific theories.<br><br></div>--></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-79663386050394163882023-03-21T08:29:00.006+05:302023-04-14T03:13:55.078+05:30Scrivener on LinuxI'm no writer, but hope to write a book someday.<br><br>
Tried Scrivener 3.1.4 for Windows 64 Bit Free Trial on Linux using CrossOver22 and it works. <br><br>
Installation:<br><br>
1. Install a licensed version of CrossOver22 on the Linux distro of your choice.<br>
2. Make a CrossOver22 "bottle" with environment as 64 bit Windows10.<br>
3. Download the Windows trial version of Scrivener 64 bit from the official website and install it into the CrossOver22 bottle mentioned in step 2.<br>
4. Buy Scrivener license.<br><br>
Without buying the abovementioned licenses, CrossOver22 will shut down after 30 days and Scrivener will shut down after 30 days.<br><br>
Cost of CrossOver22 license is about $25 per year. But it can install lots of Windows software on Linux & not just Scrivener. <div><br>
Cost of Scrivener license is about $63 one time.</div><div><br></div><div><b>Problems:</b></div><div><b><br></b></div><div>CrossOver breaks often when Linux updates itself, and this will break Scrivener and whatever other Windows software one has installed.</div><div><br></div><div><b>So this method is not for professional work because the risk of losing your entire work is very high when the CrossOver platform breaks after a Linux update, breaking Scrivener in the process. </b></div><div><b><br></b></div><div>All softwares are designed for & reliable only in their native environment, and for Windows programs, Linux is not the native environment. <br><br>
Screenshots:<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtumoMpc-NggcQNPOZSBovKCmJgO08xrskAolNV3mX-dERSCNSwSDJ57uDyV6G_NmE1z-9H5avua5qzizFU952_w-AYPdtg90Epe_JJdTa1_H9aHe1OWNy1i0Zoejp6c_XkO2DSm5VdP3ekoEPgmkVya-wy4TX1kR2aSVzZ-vGb4HNdi0DUtrv0uAj/s1600/scrivener22.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="98%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtumoMpc-NggcQNPOZSBovKCmJgO08xrskAolNV3mX-dERSCNSwSDJ57uDyV6G_NmE1z-9H5avua5qzizFU952_w-AYPdtg90Epe_JJdTa1_H9aHe1OWNy1i0Zoejp6c_XkO2DSm5VdP3ekoEPgmkVya-wy4TX1kR2aSVzZ-vGb4HNdi0DUtrv0uAj/s1600/scrivener22.png"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiamouanHghtEcLXnU7jzi0Lu2TqOQ8P6sAjj9P-ivPWSEh5cmp_nofBRX4vOvtB2AAou3w8UyePJwlxlMAMTjD2qXDxnQUxx5fzB6LIXcnFnlICeUIk39JWYwhu02FHentL2_F43wnhhhCyism_M5mKV9XYlTwfxQPDCC_7tI2k-ydeOycRZoCFtKM/s1600/scrivener-license.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="98%" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiamouanHghtEcLXnU7jzi0Lu2TqOQ8P6sAjj9P-ivPWSEh5cmp_nofBRX4vOvtB2AAou3w8UyePJwlxlMAMTjD2qXDxnQUxx5fzB6LIXcnFnlICeUIk39JWYwhu02FHentL2_F43wnhhhCyism_M5mKV9XYlTwfxQPDCC_7tI2k-ydeOycRZoCFtKM/s1600/scrivener-license.png"></a></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-27111259907696076482023-03-10T10:42:00.024+05:302023-04-03T04:46:54.337+05:30Switched to LinuxI use Manjaro Linux. My current version is <b>Manjaro KDE Plasma 22 minimal version.</b><br><br><u>
Manjaro is a 'Rolling Release'...<br>
You install it once, and you're done. No need to do fresh full installs of future major releases of Manjaro. The existing Manjaro installation will upgrade itself.</u><br><br>
It uses the Archlinux AUR repository. Lots of software there, it is probably a bigger collection than Ubuntu repositories. <div><br><div><div>
Printing and scanning - awesome.<br><br><b><u>
Settings on my Installation:</u></b><br><br>
1. UEFI Boot into Manjaro KDE installer USB drive.</div><div><br><div>
2. LUKS enabled during UEFI installation to target disk/partition.<div><br><b>
3. Font Scaling (last screenshot) to 118.75% after installation. </b><i>(You can scale to 106%, 112%, 118.75%, 125% etc.)</i></div><div><i><br></i></div><div>4. File Indexer (Baloo) setting changed immediately after installation, to minimise use of CPU resources.</div><div><br><b><u>
Software installed by me using the Archlinux AUR and Manjaro PAMAC:</u></b></div><div><br>
1. LibreOffice-Still.<br>
2. Bleachbit (Junk files remover)<br>
3. Czkawka (Duplicate file finder)<br>
4. CrossOver (Windows Application installer)<br>
5. LibreCAD - (Engineering drawings) --- light work.<br>
6. Bricsys - (Engineering drawings) ----hardcore work.<br>
<b>7. Steam - I use Universe Sandbox</b><br>
8. ChartNexus - For stock market "Technical Analysis".<br><br><br>
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</div></div></div></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-86427919077660491182016-07-07T00:00:00.000+05:302016-07-09T16:35:39.283+05:30Constructive Empiricism - An introduction to Scientific Antirealism(Abstracted from the Stanford University Online Library)<br />
<br />
<small>Copyright © 2014 by The Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University.</small><br />
<br />
Constructive Empiricism:<br />
<br />
Constructive empiricism is the version of scientific anti-realism promulgated by Bas van Fraassen in his famous book <b>The Scientific Image (1980).</b><br />
<br />
Van Fraassen defines the view as follows:<br />
<br />
Science aims to give us theories which are empirically adequate; and acceptance of a theory involves as belief only that it is empirically adequate. (1980, 12)<br />
<br />
A theory is empirically adequate exactly if what it says about the observable things and events in the world is true — exactly if it ‘saves the phenomena.’ (van Fraassen 1980, 12)<br />
<br />
To understand the above account, one needs first to appreciate the difference between the <big><i>syntactic view</i></big> of scientific theories and van Fraassen's preferred <big><i>semantic view</i></big> of scientific theories. <br />
<br />
On the <b>syntactic view</b>, a theory is given by an enumeration of theorems, expressed in some one particular language. <br />
<br />
In contrast, on the <b>semantic view</b>, a theory is given by the specification of a class of structures (describable in various languages) that are the theory's models (the determinate structures of which the theory holds true). <br />
<br />
As van Fraassen says,<br />
<br />
To present a theory is to specify a family of structures, its models; and secondly, to specify certain parts of those models (the empirical substructures) as candidates for the direct representation of observable phenomena. (1980, 64) <br />
<br />
<b>A theory is empirically adequate, then, if appearances — “the structures which can be described in experimental and measurement reports” (1980, 64) — are isomorphic to the empirical substructures of some model of the theory. </b><br />
<br />
Roughly speaking, the theory is empirically adequate if the observable phenomena can “find a home” within the structures described by the theory — that is to say, the observable phenomena can be “embedded” in the theory. <br />
<br />
<table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><td><span style="font-size:120%;">The constructive empiricist rejects arguments that suggest that one is rationally obligated to believe in the truth of a theory, given that one believes in the empirical adequacy of the theory.<br />
<br />
For this epistemological argument to work, the distinction between empirical adequacy and truth has to be well-founded.</span></td></tr>
</table><br />
Summary:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>Constructive empiricism is a view which stands in contrast to the type of scientific realism that claims the following:<br />
<br />
Science aims to give us, in its theories, a literally true story of what the world is like; and acceptance of a scientific theory involves the belief that it is true. (van Fraassen 1980, 8)<br />
<br />
In contrast, the constructive empiricist holds that science aims at truth about observable aspects of the world, but that <b><i>science does not aim at truth about unobservable aspects.</i></b> </blockquote><br />
Acceptance of a theory, according to constructive empiricism, correspondingly differs from acceptance of a theory on the scientific realist view: the constructive empiricist holds that as far as belief is concerned, acceptance of a scientific theory involves only the belief that the theory is empirically adequate.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://sites.google.com/site/philosophymassimi/">Dr. Michela Massimi</a> is a Ph.D from the <a href="http://www.lse.ac.uk/home.aspx">London School of Economics</a>, and a senior lecturer of philosophy at the University of Edinburgh.<br />
<br />
In the following video, she explains <b>Constructive Empiricism</b> very nicely:<br />
<br />
<center><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wLUnwOo-ygE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></center><br />
Terms used by Dr. Massimi:<br />
<br />
1. <b>"Scientific realism":</b><br />
Is a positive epistemic attitude towards the content of our best theories and models, recommending belief in both observable and unobservable aspects of the world described by the sciences.<br />
<br />
2. <b>"Scientific Anti-realism":</b> <br />
In philosophy of science, anti-realism applies chiefly to claims about the non-reality of "unobservable" entities such as electrons or genes, which are not detectable with human senses.<br />
<br />
3. <b>"Epistemology":</b><br />
Relating to knowledge or to the degree of its validation.<br />
<br />
4. <b>"Ontology":</b><br />
The philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence, or reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations.<br />
<br />
5. <b>"Empirical Adequacy":</b><br />
Roughly speaking, if a theory works in practical life, it is called empirically adequate.<br />
<br />
6. <b>"Semantic aspect":</b><br />
Semantics is the study of meaning.<br />
<br />
7. <b>"Syntactic aspect"</b>:<br />
Syntax, or the study of structure.<br />
<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-42239994854258308982015-12-13T22:27:00.000+05:302017-03-15T17:07:40.201+05:30A commercial Quantum Computer<!--\uCN.Qgjxu)qaVY:cjU(EaA$2&<?%n}qE>LC\thNS%>p"LY"_R&E*~LzzW7dn)7@#*a`C/kHvTNKvAbf{C*r--><br />
<!--qvYy kYeF ewpb Z+1U n5u5 Ikdv LnIA F65z TA3J 60G1 3x4=--><br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #666000;">Introduction:</span></b><br />
<br />
<i>A quick look at commercial quantum computers. These computers have human like intelligence, and are a totally different ball game from the Bill Gates type of computer.<br />
<br />
Currently manufactured by a Canadian startup named D-Wave but others will follow soon.<br />
<br />
D-Wave's quantum computer can hold in its "digital mind", possibilities that exceed the number of particles in the whole observable universe!<br />
<br />
<b>So if you gave such a computer a chess situation, or any real world issue, it would be able to ponder a number of relevant possibilities that exceeds the total number of particles in the whole observable universe!</b><br />
<br />
<b>Applications would be traffic control, air traffic control, weather predictions....political strategy...business strategy. War strategy. Very long list.</b><br />
<br />
D-Wave's current machine can ponder 2<sup>1000</sup> possibilities simultaneously.<br />
<br />
<b>That's 2 multiplied by itself 1000 times. Larger than the number of particles in the observable universe.</b></i><br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>© D-Wave Systems:<br />
<br />
Jun 22, 2015<br />
<br />
<b>D-Wave Systems Breaks the 1000 Qubit Quantum Computing Barrier</b><br />
<br />
<i>New Milestone Will Enable System to Address Larger and More Complex Problems</i><br />
<br />
<b>Palo Alto, CA - June 22, 2015</b> - D-Wave Systems Inc., the world's first quantum computing company, today announced that it has broken the 1000 qubit barrier, developing a processor about double the size of D-Wave’s previous generation and far exceeding the number of qubits ever developed by D-Wave or any other quantum effort.<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;"><b>At 1000 qubits, the new processor considers 2<sup>1000</sup> possibilities simultaneously</b></span>, a search space which dwarfs the 2<sup>512</sup> possibilities available to the 512-qubit D-Wave Two.<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: #9fc5e8;"><b><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">In fact, the new search space contains far more possibilities than there are particles in the observable universe.</span></span></b></span></blockquote><br />
Formidable power expanding very rapidly....the quantum computer reduces your Bill Gates type of computer to the status of a bullock cart,<b><i> in certain applications.</i></b><br />
<br />
Let us take a quick look at what makes a Quantum Computer tick. As explained by the founder of D-Wave.<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PqN_2jDVbOU" width="853"></iframe><br />
<br />
Highlights:<br />
<br />
1. Everytime you add these Qubits, you double the number of .....so the way I think this is, the shadows of these parallel worlds, overlap with ours, and if we are smart enough, we can dive into these parallel worlds, grab their resources and pull them back into ours.<br />
<br />
<b><br />
</b> <b><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">So what is he talking about, when he talks of parallel worlds?</span></b><br />
<b><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;"><br />
</span></b> <b><span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">He is referring to the MWI, or the many worlds interpretation of Quantum Physics:</span></b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #660000;">Many-worlds interpretation of Quantum Physics:</span></b><br />
<br />
This interpretation implies that all possible alternate histories and futures [of anything] are real, each representing an actual "world" (or "universe"). <br />
<br />
The hypothesis states there is a very large—<b>perhaps infinite</b> <b>number of universes</b>, and everything that could possibly have happened in our past, but did not, has occurred in the past of some other universe or universes.<br />
<br />
MWI is one of many multiverse hypotheses in physics and philosophy.<b><span style="color: #660000;"> It is currently considered a mainstream interpretation</span></b> along with others.<br />
<br />
Before many-worlds, reality had always been viewed as a single unfolding history. Many-worlds, however, views reality as a many-branched tree, wherein every possible quantum outcome is realised. Many-worlds reconciles the observation of non-deterministic events, such as random radioactive decay, with the fully deterministic equations of quantum physics.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #660000;"><b>THE BASICS OF QUANTUM COMPUTING:</b></span><br />
<br />
<img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 0px 10px; WIDTH: 45%; border-style:none; CURSOR: hand" alt="Bloch Sphere representation of a Qubit" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Bloch_Sphere.svg"><i>The basic digit of a quantum computer is a QUBIT. It is a VECTOR, while the basic digit used in a conventional Bill Gates type of computer is a SCALAR.</i><br />
<br />
Via Wikipedia:<br />
<br />
Consider first a classical computer that operates on a three-bit register. The state of the computer at any time is a probability distribution over the 2<sup>3</sup>=8 different three-bit strings 000, 001, 010, 011, 100, 101, 110, 111. If it is a deterministic computer, then it is in exactly one of these states with probability 1. <br />
<br />
<b>However, if it is a probabilistic computer,</b> then there is a possibility of it being in any one of a number of different states. We can describe this probabilistic state by eight non-negative numbers A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H (where A = is the probability that the computer is in state 000, B = is the probability that the computer is in state 001, etc.). There is a restriction that these probabilities sum to 1.<br />
<br />
<b>The state of a three-qubit quantum computer is similarly described</b> by an eight-dimensional vector (a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h), called a ket. Here, however, the coefficients can have complex values, and it is the sum of the squares of the coefficients' magnitudes, |a|<sup>2</sup>+|b|<sup>2</sup>+....+|h|<sup>2</sup>, that must equal 1. These squared magnitudes represent the probability of each of the given states. However, because a complex number encodes not just a magnitude but also a direction in the complex plane, the phase difference between any two coefficients (states) represents a meaningful parameter. This is a fundamental difference between quantum computing and probabilistic classical computing.<br />
<br />
D-Wave has a 1000 qubit commercially successful quantum computer.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-43965278505206074952013-08-16T00:12:00.000+05:302015-11-08T02:42:32.408+05:30All Theories are Unprovable & ImprobableIntroduction:<br />
<i>"Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of an experiment agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory." - Robert Pirsig.<br />
<br />
And here's mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot's concepts, summarised at Wikipedia:<br />
<br />
"Mandelbrot described both the "Noah effect" (in which sudden discontinuous changes can occur) and the "Joseph effect" (in which persistence of a value can occur for a while, yet suddenly change afterwards." - Wikipedia.<br />
<br />
Mandelbrot says •persistence of a value can occur for a while, yet suddenly change afterwards.•<br />
<br />
This would apply to natural constants too. Your speed of light, the universal constant for gravitation, and all other universal constants - they may change. Gradually, even suddenly.<br />
<br />
Nature may not be following any "unchangeable laws". There is precision and repetition in nature certainly, but it may not be following any unchangeable laws.</i><br />
<br />
<table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><i>In fact, in 1934, Karl Popper argued that the mathematical probability of all theories, scientific or pseudo scientific, given any amount of evidence, is zero.</i></span></td></tr>
</table><center><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>"Why theories are unprovable & improbable"<br />
by <a href="http://www.marcobrien.org.uk" target="_blank">Marc O'Brien</a></b></center><br />
<blockquote>A. <b>Why all theories are unprovable:</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/n02xlid.jpg" width=15% align=left>Newton's theory of gravitation says that every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle with a force according to an inverse square law. <br />
<br />
Newton's theory is a universal generalization that applies to every particle of matter, anywhere in the universe, at any time. But however numerous they might be, our observations of planets, falling bodies, and projectiles concern only a finite number of bodies during finite amounts of time. <br />
<br />
So the scope of Newton's theory vastly exceeds the scope of the evidence. It is possible that all our observations are correct, and yet Newton's theory is false because some bodies not yet observed violate the inverse square law. <br />
<br />
Since "All Fs are G" cannot be deduced from "Some Fs are G," it cannot be true that Newton's theory can be proven by logically deducing it from the evidence. <br />
<br />
As <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imre_Lakatos">Lakatos</a> points out, this prevents us from claiming that scientific theories, unlike pseudo-scientific theories, can be proven from observational facts. The truth is that no theory can be deduced from such facts. All theories are unprovable, scientific and unscientific alike.<br />
<br />
_________________________<br />
<br />
B. <b>Why all theories are improbable:</b><br />
<br />
<br />
While conceding that scientific theories cannot be proven, most people still believe that theories can be made more probable by evidence. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imre_Lakatos">Lakatos</a> follows <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/">Popper</a> in denying that any theory can be made probable by any amount of evidence. Popper's argument for this controversial claim rests on the analysis of the objective probability of statements given by inductive logicians.<br />
<br />
Consider a card randomly drawn from a standard deck of fifty-two cards. What is the probability that the card selected is the ten of hearts? <br />
<br />
Obviously, the answer is 1/52. There are fifty-two possibilities, each of which is equally likely and only one of which would render true the statement "This card is the ten of hearts." <br />
<br />
Now consider a scientific theory that, like Newton's theory of gravitation, is universal. <br />
<br />
The number of things to which Newton's theory applies is, presumably, infinite. Imagine that we name each of these things by numbering them 1, 2, 3, . . . , n, . . . <br />
<br />
There are infinitely many ways the world could be, each equally probable.<br />
<br />
1 obeys Newton's theory, but none of the others do.<br />
<br />
1 and 2 obey Newton's theory, but none of the others do.<br />
<br />
1, 2, and 3 obey Newton's theory, but none of the others do.<br />
<br />
All bodies (1, 2, 3, . . . , n, . . . ) obey Newton's theory.<br />
<br />
Since these possibilities are infinite in number, and each of them has the same probability, the probability of any one of them must be 0. But only one, the last one, represents the way the world would be if Newton's theory were true. So the probability of Newton's theory (and any other universal generalization) must be ZERO.<br />
<br />
<table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><td><span style="font-size:100%;">Now one might think that, even if the initial probability of a theory must be ZERO, the probability of the theory when it has been confirmed by evidence will be greater than ZERO. As it turns out, the probability calculus denies this. <br />
<br />
Let our theory be T, and let our evidence for T be E. <br />
<br />
We are interested in P(T/E), the probability of T given our evidence E. Bayes's theorem (which follows logically from the axioms of the probability calculus) tells us that this probability is:<br />
<br />
P(T/E) = P(E/T) x P(T)/P(E)<br />
<br />
If the initial probability of T, that is P(T), is ZERO, then P(T/E) must also be ZERO. Thus, no theory can increase in objective probability, regardless of the amount of evidence for it. For this reason, Lakatos joins Popper in regarding all theories, whether scientific or not, as equally unprovable and equally improbable.</span></td></tr>
</table><br />
<b><center>Why all theories are unprovable Part 2<br />
by <a href="http://www.marcobrien.org.uk" target="_blank">Marc O'Brien</a></center></b><br />
<br />
We cannot study the big bang, if even there was one - what we have to do is infer from the hypothetical big bang to what the universe might look like if the big bang happened, microwave background radiation and gravitational waves and so on, and if we find those things then we consider the big bang to be a theory and no longer a hypothesis.<br />
<br />
However, no theory can ever be proved and certainly no single observation can be expected to prove a whole theory. It is literally illogical to ask for proof of a theory. All proofs of a theory commit the fallacy of affirming the consequent. That is "If P then Q, Q, ergo P".<br />
<br />
Instead theories are explanations of all the observed facts taken holistically - theories offer explanations for why it is that all these facts seen as relevant hang together the way they do.<br />
<br />
One might ask for proof that the earth rotates and orbits the sun. Another might answer that all one needs to do is observe the sun rising in the morning. But a more simple explanation of the sun rising in the morning would be that the sun orbits the earth. By this we see that no single observation could ever prove a theory. There are always other possible explanations for singular observations. Theories must instead explain all the facts combined - they must account for all the observation facts under one umbrella.<br />
<br />
So what happens when, like the big bang hypothesis, we make a god hypothesis? Well, we ask ourselves what the world and universe would look like if such a hypothesis got it right.<br />
<br />
But when we do look to the world and universe we find that, of all the explanations for the way the universe and world are, the least best explanation is that there is or was a god. There are other better explanations. And only the ignorant or irrational would follow the less better explanations.<br />
<br />
But again - only those ignorant of logic and the theory of knowledge would ask for a proof for anything outside of logic and math. It is literally illogical to ask for proof of a theory.<br />
<br />
<b><center>All Theories are unprovable part 3<br />
by <a href="http://www.marcobrien.org.uk" target="_blank">Marc O'Brien</a></center></b><br />
<br />
Theories invoke confirmations out of the logical form "If P then Q" where an affirmation of Q cannot guarantee P.<br />
<br />
Theorems on the other hand invoke confirmations out of the logical form "Iff P then Q" where an affirmation of Q unequivocally also establishes P. Theorems are confined to areas analytic - math and logic - they do not also cover theories (explanations).<br />
<br />
Scientific theories are not theorems but rather are explanations and most explanations actually can't even be arguments anyway.<br />
<br />
It is literally illogical and a major misunderstanding of science and its theories, the nature of theories generally, to ask for a theory to be proved or to not realise that one is being asked a nonsense question when one is being asked for a proof.<br />
<br />
Also there is no such thing as "The" Scientific Method. Believing so is an example of scientism. Instead there are a myriad of methods each employed according to their appropriateness.<br />
<br />
Ray comfort asks not for many but for just one observation that proves evolution.<br />
<br />
But logic informs us that no single observation can ever unequivocally affirm a theoretical conditional proposition. For any one observation and even multiple observations there is always the possibility of some other explanation.<br />
<br />
As I have said before - observing the sun's rising might be invoked in support of heliocentircism yet that one observation could be more simply invoked in support of geocentricism - such is the weakness in pursuits of some single observation that supports or proves a theory. The strength of a theory is measured not by it being supported by one single observation but rather that it explains all related observations and so not one but a list of observation must be invoked when trying to demonstrate that a theory is a good explanation.<br />
<br />
The theory of evolution is not confirmed and, like all theories, nor can it be proved, by any single observation - instead it is the best explanation for all the observations taken as a whole.<br />
<br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Further reading: <a href="http://crl.ucsd.edu/~ahorowit/lakatos.pdf">Science and Pseudoscience by Imre Lakatos</a><br />
<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-35515632645714269032013-03-31T16:54:00.002+05:302014-01-30T01:41:59.872+05:30Sustainability in ActionBolivian Law Grants Nature Equal Rights With Humans<br />
<br />
By <a href="http://www.care2.com/causes/author/bethb">Beth Buczynski.</a><br />
<br />
The Bolivian government has proposed <big>a ground-breaking new law that would grant all of nature equal rights to those of the human race.</big><br />
<br />
Earlier this year, Bolivia passed its own la Ley de Derechos de la Madre Tierra, or “Law of Mother Earth,” as part of a complete restructuring of the Bolivian legal system following a change of constitution in 2009.<br />
<br />
The Law of Mother Earth is the world’s first piece of legislation to grant the planet absolute protection against those who would seek to exploit or destroy its resources or ecosystems.<br />
<br />
<table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame="box"><tbody>
<tr><td><span style="color: #990000; font-size: 120%;">The new law establishes 11 new rights for nature. They include:<br />
<br />
the right to life and to exist;<br />
the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air;<br />
the right to balance;<br />
the right not to be polluted;<br />
and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 0px 10px; WIDTH: 25%; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://i.imgur.com/mc5q3Rm.jpg">The Guardian reports that the law has been heavily influenced by a resurgent indigenous Andean spiritual world view which places the environment and the earth deity known as the <a href="http://bit.ly/XbmygL"><big>Pachamama</big></a> at the centre of all life. Humans are considered equal to all other entities.<br />
<br />
The Law of Mother Earth redefines Bolivia’s tin, silver, gold and other raw mineral deposits as “blessings” and seek to protect the planet from “mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities.”<br />
<br />
“It is not clear at this stage how the somewhat abstract legislation would be implemented,” writes Olivia Solon for Wired. The state will need to be careful to balance the rights of nature with the regulation of industries (such as mining) that contribute a significant chunk of the country’s GDP.<br />
<br />
Now, Bolivia is seeking to bring these principles worldwide with a United Nations treaty. The treaty, in draft at this time, would give Mother Earth the same rights as humans, including rights to life, water and clean air, the right to repair livelihoods affected by human activities, and the right to be free from pollution (SlashGear).<br />
<br />
Critics of the law and its potential to inspire a treaty for UN nations say that it’s nothing more than an attempt by Bolivia’s socialist President Morales to “eradicate capitalism” and to force wealthy industrialized countries to “pay their environmental debt.”<br />
<br />
Personally, I think that if the mega-corporations get to hide behind the legal protections of “personhood” as they pillage and pollute the planet, it’s only fair that she should be able to stand and defend herself with the same inalienable rights.<br />
<br />
There could be no better Earth Day gift. <br />
<!--qvYy kYeF ewpb Z+1U n5u5 Ikdv LnIA F65z TA3J 60G1 3x4=--><br />
<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-2951375528453889642012-08-08T01:22:00.000+05:302016-02-29T16:38:28.903+05:30Marketing versus Selling<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="color: #990000; font-size: 120%;"></span><br />
<center><span style="color: #990000; font-size: 120%;"><b>Part 1: Selling Versus Marketing.</b></span></center><br />
"While selling revolves around the needs and interest of the manufacturer or marketer, marketing revolves around that of consumer. It is the whole process of meeting and satisfying the requirements of the consumer." - <a href="http://www.marketing91.com/selling-and-marketing/">Marketing91.</a> <br />
<br />
The following is adapted from <a href="http://www.marketing91.com/selling-and-marketing/">Marketing91.</a> <br />
<br />
SELLING ORIENTED BUSINESS: <br />
<br />
1. Focus is on sales volume and the needs of the seller. <br />
<!--2. Company manufactures the product first.
3. Views business as a goods producing process.
--> <br />
2. Different departments work in highly separate water tight compartments. <br />
<br />
3. Selling views the customer as a "source of revenue" and there is only a superficial focus on customer requirements. <br />
<br />
<br />
<table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame="box"><tbody>
<tr><td><span style="color: #990000; font-size: 120%;">The selling based business approach is obsession with profit/sales maximisation.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<a href="http://indianblogger.com/product-marketing-vs-sales-what-is-the-difference/">Indianblogger</a> writes on Selling versus Marketing: <br />
<br />
<b>•Start and End of the Activities:</b> Selling activities start after the product has been developed while marketing activities start much before the product is produced and continue even after the product has been sold. <br />
<br />
<b>•Difference in the Emphasis:</b> In selling, the emphasis is on <u>bending the customer according to the product</u> while in marketing, the attempt is to develop the product and other strategies as per the customer needs. <br />
<br />
<b>•Difference in the Strategies:</b> Selling involves efforts like promotion and persuasion while marketing uses integrated marketing efforts involving strategies in respect of product, promotion, pricing and physical distribution. <br />
<br />
The following is adapted from <a href="http://www.marketing91.com/selling-and-marketing/">Marketing91.</a>: <br />
<br />
<table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame="box"><tbody>
<tr><td><span style="color: #990000; font-size: 120%;">MARKETING ORIENTED BUSINESS:</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
1. Focus is on consumer requirements and satisfaction. <br />
<br />
<u><b>2. Company first determines consumer requirements/wishes and then designs the product/service.</b></u><br />
<br />
3. Views business as a consumer satisfying process. <br />
<br />
4. Consumer determines price, price determines cost/investment.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame="box"><tbody>
<tr><td>Selling merely concerns itself with the tricks and techniques of getting the customers to exchange their cash for the company’s products, it does not bother about the value satisfaction that the exchange is all about." - <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/13167376">Prof. Theodore Levitt.</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
The following is adapted from <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/13167376">The Economist: Theodore Levitt</a> <br />
<br />
Born in Germany where his father was a cobbler, Theodore Levitt (1925-2006) emigrated to the United States with his parents at the age of ten. Levitt is famous for two things in particular: an article published in 1960 (“Marketing Myopia”); and his resignation almost 30 years later from the editorship of the publication in which that article first appeared—Harvard Business Review. The article, written only a year after he had joined the Harvard Business School faculty, can be seen as a turning point in the acceptance and respectability of marketing. It argued that companies had paid too much attention to producing products and too little to satisfying customers. <br />
<br />
Quote <a href="http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/77740/MBA%20Marketing/Lists/Tasks/Attachments/1/Marketing%20Myopia.pdf"><i>“Marketing Myopia” by Theodore Levitt, Harvard Business Review, July–August 1960.</i></a> <span style="color: #990000; font-size: 110%;">:<br />
<br />
"The failure is at the top. The executives responsible for it, in the last analysis, are those who deal with broad aims and policies.</span> Thus: • The railroads did not stop growing because the need for passenger and freight transportation declined. That grew. The railroads are in trouble today not because that need was filled by others (cars, trucks, airplanes, and even telephones) but because it was not filled by the railroads themselves. They let others take customers away from them because <span style="font-size: 110%;"><i>they assumed themselves to be in the railroad business rather than in the transportation business.</i></span> The reason they defined their industry incorrectly was that they were railroad oriented instead of transportation oriented; <b><span style="font-size: 110%;">they were product oriented instead of customer oriented.</span></b> <br />
<br />
<br />
"<br />
<table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame="box"><tbody>
<tr><td><span style="color: #990000; font-size: 110%;"></span><br />
<center><span style="color: #990000; font-size: 100%;">THE MARKET IS MUCH MORE INTELLIGENT THAN ALL HUMANS PUT TOGETHER<br />
<br />
THE MARKET IS BIGGER THAN <br />
ALL CORPORATIONS PUT TOGETHER<br />
ALL CARTELS PUT TOGETHER<br />
AND<br />
ALL REGULATORY BODIES PUT TOGETHER</span></center><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<b>A quote by Theodore Levitt:</b> <br />
<blockquote>The difference between marketing and selling is more than semantic. Selling focuses on the needs of the seller, marketing on the needs of the buyer. Selling is preoccupied with the seller's need to convert his product into cash; marketing with the idea of satisfying the needs of the customer by means of the product and the whole cluster of things associated with creating, delivering, and finally consuming it.</blockquote><br />
<b></b><br />
<center><b>A passage from Theodore Levitt's 'Marketing Myopia'.</b></center><br />
<br />
<b>Lag in Detroit</b> <br />
<br />
<div align="justify">This may sound like an elementary rule of business, but that does not keep it from being violated wholesale. It is certainly more violated than honored. Take the automobile industry: Here mass production is most famous, most honored, and has the greatest impact on the entire society. The industry has hitched its fortune to the relentless requirements of the annual model change, a policy that makes customer orientation an especially urgent necessity. Consequently the auto companies annually spend millions of dollars on consumer research. But the fact that the new compact cars are selling so well in their first year indicates that Detroit's vast researchers have for a long time failed to reveal what the customer really wanted. Detroit was not persuaded that he wanted anything different from what he had been getting until it lost millions of customers to other small car manufacturers. <br />
<br />
How could this unbelievable lag behind consumer wants have been perpetuated so long? Why did not research reveal consumer preferences before consumers' buying decisions themselves revealed the facts? Is that not what consumer research is for - to find out before the fact what is going to happen? The answer is that Detroit never really researched the customer's wants. It only researched his preferences between the kinds of things, which it had already decided to offer him. <b><big>For Detroit is mainly product - oriented, not customer - oriented.</big></b> To the extent that the customer is recognized as having needs that the manufacturer should try to satisfy, Detroit usually acts as if the job can be done entirely by product changes. Occasionally attention gets paid to financing, too ' but that is done more in order to sell than to enable the customer to buy.</div><br />
Lastly a short video by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/HBR?fref=nf">Harvard Business Review</a> that explains Marketing and Selling, by Theodore Levitt, Marketing Guru. His concepts are explained at the end of this blog entry.<br />
<br />
<center><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,47,0" height="405" id="flashObj" width="720"><param name="movie" value="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="flashVars" value="videoId=3590615227001&playerID=2072970314001&playerKey=AQ~~,AAAB4mHtenE~,_rixfzbq5sX3kYRD-76PJa-Z8t5PlMpq&domain=embed&dynamicStreaming=true" /><param name="base" value="http://admin.brightcove.com" /><param name="seamlesstabbing" value="false" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="swLiveConnect" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed src="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="videoId=3590615227001&playerID=2072970314001&playerKey=AQ~~,AAAB4mHtenE~,_rixfzbq5sX3kYRD-76PJa-Z8t5PlMpq&domain=embed&dynamicStreaming=true" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="720" height="405" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></embed></object> </center><center> </center><!--<b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: 120%;"></span></b> <center><b><span style="color: #990000; font-size: 120%;">Part 2: Resilience & Sustainability <img src="http://i.imgur.com/VciWy.jpg" width="96%" /></span></b></center><table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame="box"><tbody> <center>An amusing look at native advertising...<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/E_F5GxCwizc" width="853"></iframe> </center><tr><td><span style="color: #990000; font-size: 110%;">It doesn't help to read up too much material on subjects like Resilience and Sustainability. These are <i><b>attitudes/qualities</b></i>, not theories or business techniques. If the selling oriented business approach appeals to someone, then these words - Resilience & Sustainability - are not for them. <br />
<br />
Because these words are all about a deep relationship* with the market, not about "maximising profit/sales or business expansion".<br />
<br />
*<small>It's not just the money. In the <i>resilient & robust</i> business model, money would be a <i>consequence</i> of the relationship with the market.</small></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>I am clubbing these topics together because they are very deeply interlinked. You can't have a situation that is resilient but not sustainable, or sustainable but not resilient. From Part 1 of this blog entry it is evident that MARKETING oriented businesses would form the core of a resilient and sustainable community. <center><b>A look at Resilience.</b></center><i>“The ability of an organisation to rapidly adapt and respond to internal or external shocks".</i> Next a look at types of resilience. From <a href="http://resilience.osu.edu/CFR-site/resilienceandsustainability.htm">Resilience.Osu.Edu</a> <b>• Economic resilience</b> Reflects the financial strength and stability of the enterprise, including the economic vitality and diversity of the communities in which it operates, the supply chain that it rests on, and the markets that it serves. <b>• Social resilience.</b> Reflects the “human capital” of the enterprise, including the capability, teamwork, and loyalty of its workforce, the strength of its relationships and alliances, and the political and cultural cohesion of its host societies. <b>• Environmental resilience.</b> Reflects the operational efficiency and effectiveness of the enterprise in terms of resource utilization and waste minimization, as well as its ability to protect and nurture the natural ecosystems in which it operates. Adapted from <a href="http://www.resorgs.org.nz/content/what-is-organisational-resilience/">Resorgs.Org.Nz</a> <b>Resilient to what?</b> Each organisation has its own 'perfect storm' – a combination of events or circumstances that has the potential to bring the organisation to its knees. This perfect storm could be set off by anything. Foreign exchange rate fluctuations, natural disasters, stock market plunges/surges etc. Sudden changes in Govt regulations could set off a storm in an entire sector. <big>Organisations sit within a larger system. No organisation is an island.</big> An organisation sits within an ecological like system. <table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame="box"><tbody>
<tr><td></td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: #990000; font-size: 120%;">"The key to resilience is not only understanding how systems work but how they break."</span> -- <a href="http://enterpriseresilienceblog.typepad.com/enterprise_resilience_man/2007/09/complexity-and-.html">Enterprise Resilience Blog</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>One very powerful approach to resilience is keeping a very frugal business infrastructure so that the business can survive long lean phases. <center><b>Sustainability</b></center><table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame="box"><tbody>
<tr><td><span style="color: #990000; font-size: 110%;">"Sustainability is not a reachable end state; rather, it is a fundamental characteristic of a dynamic, evolving system. Long-term sustainability will result not from movement along a smooth trajectory, but rather from continuous adaptation to changing conditions." -- <a href="http://resilience.osu.edu/CFR-site/resilienceandsustainability.htm">Resilience.Osu.Edu</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>And a look at the principles of <b>Sustainability</b> from <a href="http://www.colorado.edu/hazards/publications/informer/infrmr3/informer3c.htm">Colorado.EDU.</a> <b>1. Maintain and, if possible, enhance, a community's residents’ quality of life.</b> <b>2. Enhance local economic vitality.</b> A viable local economy is essential to sustainability. <b>3. Promote social equity.</b> A sustainable community’s resources and opportunities are available to everyone, regardless of ethnicity, gender, cultural background, religion, or other characteristics. Further, a sustainable community does not deplete its resources, destroy natural systems, or pass along unnecessary hazards to future generations. <b>4. Maintain and, if possible, enhance, the quality of the environment.</b> A sustainable community sees itself as existing within a physical environment and natural ecosystem and tries to find ways to co-exist with that environment. <b>5. Incorporate disaster resilience and mitigation into its decisions and actions.</b> <b>6. Use a consensus-building, participatory process when making decisions.</b> Recommended: <a href="http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/10/management-by-getting-out-of-the-way.html" target="_blank">Minimum Active Management.</a>--> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-65211794209416636082012-07-21T01:20:00.118+05:302014-02-16T14:50:44.820+05:30Subjectivity in Risk AnalysisINTRODUCTION:<br />
<br />
<kbd><i>There are known knowns; things we know we know. <br />
There are known unknowns; things we know we dont know.</i><br />
<span style="font-size:100%;color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"><i><b>But there are also unknown unknowns – things we dont know we dont know.”</b></i></span><br />
<br />
<b>—United States Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.</b></kbd><br />
<br />
<br />
And now, onto the main blog entry:<br />
<br />
<center><span style="font-size:100%;color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">"The Unknown Unknowns"</span></center><br />
<table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><td><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />
An interesting comment on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster">Fukushima Daiichi disaster:</a><br />
<br />
QUOTE:<br />
The Japanese Nuclear Commission had the following goals set in 2003: "The mean value of acute fatality risk by radiation exposure resultant from an accident of a nuclear installation to individuals of the public, who live in the vicinity of the site boundary of the nuclear installation, should not exceed the probability of about 1x10⁻⁶ per year (that is , at least 1 per million years)".<br />
<br />
That policy was designed only 8 years ago. Their one in a million-year accident occurred about 8 years later. - ENDQUOTE</span></td></tr>
</table><br />
<br />
Plus the disaster was only 66 years after 1945.<br />
<br />
<b><u>How reliable are probability estimates for real life systems?</u></b><br />
<br />
Firstly, let us take a look at the definition of the 'deterministic system':<br />
<br />
"A deterministic system is a conceptual model of the philosophical doctrine of determinism applied to a system for understanding everything that has and will occur in the system, based on the physical outcomes of causality. In a deterministic system, every action, or cause, produces a reaction, or effect, and every reaction, in turn, becomes the cause of subsequent reactions. The totality of these cascading events can theoretically show exactly how the system will exist at any moment in time."<br />
<br />
--From <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterministic_system_(philosophy)">Wiki:Deterministic System</a><br />
<br />
<br />
In a deterministic/mechanistic universe, all forces/variables/interrelationships operating in any system would be identifiable and quantifiable.<br />
<br />
<b>However, our universe is NOT a deterministic/mechanistic/discreet system in which cause effect relationships are known or knowable.</b><br />
<br />
<table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><td><span style="font-size:110%;color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Probabilities of discrete systems like the throw of a dice or toss of a coin in which outputs are well defined, such probabilities are reliable.<br />
<br />
But probabilities of real life systems, that are complex non discreet systems marked by non quantifiable <a href="http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~johnson/papers/emergence.pdf">"Emergents"</a>, systems in which all the forces/variables/interrelationships involved can never be known - such probabilities cannot be reliable.</span></td></tr>
</table><br />
<br />
Put simply,<br />
<br />
• The probabilties associated with simple systems like the throw of a dice come with 100% certainty. The probability that any one side will show up is 1/6, and this cannot be disputed.<br />
<br />
• A complex system consisting of thousands or millions of moving parts, electronics, human operators, weather conditions, is however a different ballgame. The probabilities calculated can never be certain, the subjectivity involved in the calculations is fundamentally unhandleable.<br />
<br />
<img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 32%; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://i.imgur.com/BwwkE.jpg" title="Outliers matter, and there is no such thing as “measurable risk” in the Tails - Nassim Taleb">If we look for evidence of the above - we'll run into a lot of evidence.<br />
<br />
One example:<br />
<br />
<quote>"We overestimate our ability to predict and serially assign lower than warranted probabilities to extreme events. During the week of the Lehman collapse, bank analysts claimed that they had seen 3 six sigma events (each with probability lower than 1% of 1%)!"</quote> -<a href="http://policytensor.com/2011/03/14/the-black-swan-and-oil-markets/">Policy Tensor</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><td><span style="font-size:100%;">The following are some examples of <span style="font-size:100%;color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"><b>popular scientists/philosophers/mathematicians who's basic world view is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminism">Indeterminism.</a> The Indeterminist cannot trust probability/uncertainty calculations for real life systems.</b></span><br />
<br />
By no means an exhaustive list, there's a lot more:<br />
<br />
• Richard Feynman (Physicist, Nobel Prize 1965 )<br />
• Fritjof Capra (physicist)<br />
• Benoit Mandelbrot (mathematician)<br />
• Nassim Taleb (mathematician)<br />
• Robert Pirsig (philosopher/metaphysician)<br />
• Robert Laughlin (physicist)<br />
• Werner Heisenberg (Quantum physicist, Nobel Prize 1932)<br />
• Max Born (Quantum physicist, Nobel Prize 1954)<br />
• Jacques Monod (Nobel Prize 1965)<br />
• Murray Gell-Man (Nobel Prize 1969)<br />
• Ilya Prigogine* (Nobel Prize 1977)<br />
<br />
*Argued for indeterminism in complex systems.<br />
</span></td></tr>
</table><br />
<br />
Some QUOTES:<br />
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<span style="font-size:110%;color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">• "If a guy tells me that the probability of failure is 1 in 10⁵, I know he’s full of crap."</span> <br />
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- Richard Feynman, Nobel Laureate <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Commission_Report#Role_of_Richard_Feynman" target="_blank">commenting on the NASA Challenger disaster.</a><br />
<br />
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• "We don't know the probability. We don't have enough data, we don't have enough knowledge, we don't have reliable information."<br />
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- <i>Benoit Mandelbrot, founding father of Fractal Mathematics, <a href="http://youtu.be/DLFkQdiXPbo?t=9m11s" target="_blank">commenting on the complexity of global economics.</a></i><br />
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• "We should not talk about small probabilities in any domain. Science cannot deal with them. It is irresponsible to talk about small probabilities and make people rely on them, except for natural systems that have been standing for 3 billion years." - Nassim Taleb.<br />
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• "If you compute the frequency of a rare event and your survival depends on such event not taking place (such as nuclear events), then you underestimated that probability." - Nassim Taleb.<br />
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<table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><td><span style="font-size:100%;">Passages from <a href="http://www.csr.ncl.ac.uk/FELIX_Web/5A.Subjectivity%20in%20Risk.pdf">Subjectivity in Risk @ CSR.NCL.AC.UK</a> by <a href="http://www.ncl.ac.uk/computing/people/profile/felix.redmill">Felix Redmill.</a><br />
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• Risk values are arrived at via the process of risk analysis. In many quarters, this is assumed to be objective, and its results - the risk values - to be correct. Yet, as will be shown in subsequent sections of this report, all stages of the process involve subjectivity, in some cases to a considerable extent. Always there is reliance on judgement, and, as in all cases in which judgement is called for, there can be no guarantee that it will be made to a reasonable approximation, even by an expert. Indeed, it may be - and sometimes is - made by an inexperienced novice. The need for judgement introduces subjectivity and bias, and therefore uncertainty and the likelihood of inaccuracy. <br />
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<span style="font-size:100%;color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">The results obtained by one risk analyst are unlikely to be obtained by others starting with the same information.</span><br />
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Further, there is a natural impediment to arriving at 'correct' risk values. Although definitions of risk do not explicitly refer to time, the future is implicit in them.<br />
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• Thus, risk may be estimated but it cannot be measured (Gould et al 1988). Risk values cannot be assumed to be 'correct'.<br />
<br />
• The decisions on how to define consequence, at both the definition-of-scope and analysis stages, are subjective. So too are the predictions of what the actual consequences might be.<br />
<br />
• This omission of possible causes of failure (or dangerous failure, if safety is the main criterion) is not unusual and, no guarantee can be given that it has been avoided. It renders risk calculations spurious.</span></td></tr>
</table><br />
<br />
<br />
And finally, a passage from <a href="http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v10n1/hansson.html">Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology:</a><br />
<br />
Few if any decisions in actual life are based on probabilities that are known with certainty.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size:100%;color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">• Strictly speaking, the only clear-cut cases of “risk” (known probabilities) seem to be idealized textbook cases that refer to devices such as dice, coins, or roulette wheels that are supposedly known with certainty to be fair. More typical real-life cases are characterized by uncertainty that does not, primarily, come with exact probabilities.</span> <br />
<br />
Hence, almost all decisions are decisions “under uncertainty”. To the extent that we make decisions “under risk”, this does not mean that these decisions are made under conditions of completely known probabilities. Rather, it means that we have chosen to simplify our description of these decision problems by treating them as cases of known probabilities.<br />
<br />
This ubiquity of uncertainty applies also in engineering design. An engineer performing a complex design task has to take into account a large number of hazards and eventualities. Some of these eventualities can be treated in terms of probabilities; the failure rates of some components may for instance be reasonably well-known from previous experiences. <br />
<br />
<table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><td><span style="font-size:120%;color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">However, even when we have a good experience-based estimate of a failure rate, some uncertainty remains about the correctness of this estimate and in particular about its applicability in the context to which we apply it.</span></td></tr>
</table><br />
<br />
In addition, in every design process there are uncertainties for which we do not have good or even meaningful probability estimates.<br />
<br />
This includes the ways in which humans will interact with new constructions. As one example of this, users sometimes “compensate” for improved technical safety by more risk-taking behaviour. Drivers are known to have driven faster or delayed braking when driving cars with better brakes. (Rothengatter 2002) It is not in practice possible to assign meaningful numerical probabilities to these and other human reactions to new and untested designs. It is also difficult to determine adequate probabilities for unexpected failures in new materials and constructions or in complex new software. <br />
<br />
<span style="font-size:110%;color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">We can never escape the uncertainty that refers to the eventuality of new types of failures that we have not been able to foresee.</span><br />
<br />
Of course, whereas reducing risk is obviously desirable, the same may not be said about the reduction of uncertainty. Strictly interpreted, uncertainty reduction is an epistemic goal rather than a practical one.<br />
<br />
<br />
• Many of the most ethically important safety issues in engineering design refer to hazards that cannot be assigned meaningful probability estimates. It is appropriate that at least two of the most important strategies for safety in engineering design, namely safety factors and multiple safety barriers, deal not only with risk (in the standard, probabilistic sense of the term) but also with uncertainty.<br />
<br />
Currently there is a trend in several fields of engineering design towards increased use of probabilistic risk analysis (PRA). This trend may be a mixed blessing since it can lead to a one-sided focus on those dangers that can be assigned meaningful probability estimates. PRA is an important design tool, but it is not the final arbitrator of safe design since it does not deal adequately with issues of uncertainty. Design practices such as safety factors and multiple barriers are indispensable in the design process, and so is ethical reflection and argumentation on issues of safety. Probability calculations can often support, but never supplant, the engineer’s ethically responsible judgment. <br />
<br />
<br />
- <b>Safe Design</b> by <a href="http://home.abe.kth.se/~soh/" target="_blank">Sven Ove Hansson</a>, Department of Philosophy and the History of Technology, <a href="http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v10n1/hansson.html">Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm.</a><br />
<br />
Recommended 1: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Commission_Report#Role_of_Richard_Feynman">Role of Richard Feynman in NASA Challanger disaster, Rogers Commission Report</a><br />
<br />
<table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><td><span style="font-size:100%;">Some quotes from the abovementioned:<br />
<br />
• "Feynman was struck by management's claim that the risk of catastrophic malfunction on the shuttle was 1 in 10<sup>5</sup>; i.e., 1 in 100,000. Feynman immediately realized that this claim was risible on its face; as he described, this assessment of risk would entail that NASA could expect to launch a shuttle every day for the next 274 years while suffering, on average, only one accident."<br />
<br />
• Feynman was disturbed by two aspects of this practice. First, NASA management assigned a probability of failure to each individual bolt, sometimes claiming a probability of 1 in 10<sup>8</sup>; that is, one in one hundred million. Feynman pointed out that it is impossible to calculate such a remote possibility with any scientific rigor. Secondly, Feynman was bothered not just by this sloppy science but by the fact that NASA claimed that the risk of catastrophic failure was "necessarily" 1 in 10<sup>5</sup>. As the figure itself was beyond belief, Feynman questioned exactly what "necessarily" meant in this context—did it mean that the figure followed logically from other calculations, or did it reflect NASA management's desire to make the numbers fit?<br />
<br />
• Feynman suspected that the 1/100,000 figure was wildly fantastical, and made a rough estimate that the true likelihood of shuttle disaster was closer to 1 in 100.</span></td></tr>
</table><br />
<br />
Recommended 2: <a href="http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v2appf.htm">Report of the PRESIDENTIAL COMMISSION on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident, Volume 2: Appendix F - Personal Observations on Reliability of Shuttle by R. P. Feynman</a><br />
Recommended 3: <a href="http://mastermindmaps.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/black-swan1.jpg">Black Swan MindMap</a><br />
Recommended 4: <a href="http://policytensor.com/2011/03/14/the-black-swan-and-oil-markets/">Policy Tensor</a><br />
Recommended 5: <a href="http://www.infra.kth.se/phil/riskpage/index.htm">Philosophy of Risk Homepage</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-84995645349423362252012-05-10T10:49:00.064+05:302014-02-03T13:04:39.597+05:30Discontinuity - II<img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 40%; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/discontinuous.jpg">An interesting article by <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/view/bios/mark-buchanan/">Mark Buchanan</a> in Nature Physics 7, 589 (2011).<br />
<a href="http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v7/n8/full/nphys2060.html">Differentiating the Discontinuous</a><br />
<br />
Consider these statements from this article:<br />
<blockquote>"Differential equations normally involve continuous functions because small changes in a system's current state generally cause equally small changes in its dynamics."<br />
<br />
"Smooth fluid flows routinely develop shock waves, for example, where the flow becomes discontinuous — velocity or pressure changing sharply over a microscopic distance."</li><br />
</blockquote><br />
In Buchanan's example of shock waves in a fluid, if we assume that the pressure would increase in a 'continuous manner' over time, i.e. it would pass through all possible numeric states, theoretical or states that a measuring instrument can measure, as it increases - <span style="font-size:110%;color:#cc2b00;">this assumption would be wrong.</span><br />
<br />
For example, if the pressure jumps from ≈1 PSIG to ≈25 PSIG suddenly, the assumption that it would pass through all possible numeric states, theoretical or actual pressure states that a measuring instrument can measure, between ≈1 and ≈25 - this assumption would be wrong.<br />
<br />
<table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><td><span style="font-size:100%;">To be more specific, if we conclude that at any random co-ordinate the pressure would have been ≈15 PSIG sometime, if it has increased from ≈1 to ≈25 PSIG at that co-ordinate, this conclusion would be wrong.<br />
<br />
Unless we see evidence that the pressure measuring instrument registered ≈15 PSIG at some point.</span></td></tr>
</table><br />
<br />
Please refer to my previous blog entry for an elaboration. Link: <a href="http://tech.vikram-madan.com/2011/03/discontinuity.html">Discontinuity</a><br />
<br />
In fact, no matter how large or small the time frame is, fluid pressure (or any variable or relationship under the sun) cannot be properly mapped by any mathematical function.<br />
<br />
If we talk about a very simple system for example current drawn by a simple circuit with fixed resistance when the voltage is varied (V=I.R); even in this case, the system states that we calculate using the formula will never be in very good agreement with the practical results and the actual plot between voltage and current will never be a straight line, and in fact, <span style="font-size:110%;color:#cc2b00;">it will not obey any mathematics.</span> <br />
<br />
The actual data plot of the above mentioned system should not be looked upon as a noisy linear system because it's not a linear system. Ohm's law is an imaginary reference, and no more.<br />
<br />
<table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><td><span style="font-size:100%;">Ohm's Law is an example of <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/constructive-empiricism/#2.2" target="_blank">'Empirical Adequacy'</a>. It's not a 'truth' of electricity.</span></td></tr>
</table><br />
<i>Please also refer to the James Gleick book passage at the end of this blog entry.</i><br />
<br />
Every system, regardless of what kind of a system it is, is TURBULENCE. If we focus on the quieter, smoother stages of a system, we will see turbulence in them. We will see discontinuity. We will see all the erratic behaviour that is generally associated with periods of high turbulence.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size:100%;color:#cc2b00;"><u>Living at the Discontinuity:</u></span><br />
<br />
Mark Buchanan Quote:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><span style="font-size:120%;">"</span>...Filippov suggested that discontinuities would have their most interesting consequences in situations where a system's dynamics (away from the discontinuity) act automatically to bring the discontinuity into play. Take the superconductor example again. If the equations for T > TC drive the temperature down towards the discontinuity at T = TC, whereas the equations operating for T < TC drive the temperature upwards, then the discontinuity acts as a kind of trapping surface.<span style="font-size:120%;">"</span></blockquote><br />
An interesting graph on Discontinuity from <a href="http://snarketing2dot0.com/2008/09/14/where-are-you-on-the-s-curve-and-which-curve-are-you-on/">Snarketing2dot0.Com:</a><br />
<br />
<center><img src="http://i.imgur.com/RTino.png" width=80%></center><br />
And finally, here's a passage on Discontinuity from "Chaos: Making a New Science" by <a href="http://around.com/about/">James Gleick</a>:<br />
<br />
<table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><td><span style="font-size:100%;">Discontinuity, bursts of noise, Cantor dusts — phenomena like these had no place in the geometries of the past two thousand years. The shapes of classical geometry are lines and planes, circles and spheres, triangles and cones. They represent a powerful abstraction of reality, and they inspired a powerful philosophy of Platonic harmony. Euclid made of them a geometry that lasted two millennia, the only geometry still that most people ever learn. Artists found an ideal beauty in them, Ptolemaic astronomers built a theory of the universe out of them. But for understanding complexity, they turn out to be the wrong kind of abstraction.<br />
<br />
Clouds are not spheres, Mandelbrot is fond of saying. Mountains are not cones. Lightning does not travel in a straight line. The new geometry mirrors a universe that is rough, not rounded, scabrous, not smooth. It is a geometry of the pitted, pocked, and broken up, the twisted, tangled, and intertwined. The understanding of nature’s complexity awaited a suspicion that the complexity was not just random, not just accident. It required a faith that the interesting feature of a lightning bolt’s path, for example, was not its direction, but rather the distribution of zigs and zags. Mandelbrot’s work made a claim about the world, and the claim was that such odd shapes carry meaning. The pits and tangles are more than blemishes distorting the classic shapes of Euclidian geometry. They are often the keys to the essence of a thing.</span></td></tr>
</table><!--http://i.imgur.com/0LhXg.png--><br />
<br />
Here is a graph of the Indian Bombay Stock Exchange Index, the SENSEX.<br />
<br />
Its natural movement is filled with gaps. It is a discontinuous flow. Very easily visible.<br />
<br />
In the case of equity prices, the prices very often come back, to 'fill the gaps'. That is another aspect of Discontinuity, that I will explore, in my next discontinuity post, Discontinuity-III.<br />
<br />
<center><img src="http://i.imgur.com/qgwgS8X.png" width=96%></center>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-33763027964701065842012-03-14T12:49:00.092+05:302012-08-07T03:01:47.869+05:30Emergence<img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 30%; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://i.imgur.com/2540D.jpg" />A discussion on 'Emergence' and 'Emergent Properties of a system'.<br /><br /><b>Introduction:</b> <i>A system, any type of system, always has properties & manifestations that cannot be quantified and pre estimated. These are known as 'Emergent Properties'. <br /><br />The single biggest consequence of the above is on decision making. <br /><br />Since a system has properties that cannot be quantified or pre estimated, the high quality decision, in any capacity, keeps mathematical inputs in mind, but, ultimately relies on the comprehensive experience of the decision maker. The high quality decision is the totality of the decision maker's experience in action and it may not always agree with what the mathematics might point to.</i><br /><br />Coming to the subject of discussion, <br /><br />i.e. EMERGENCE:<br /><br />This concept plays a very important role in Chaos Theory, and has been discussed by philosophers for a very long time.<br /><br />Discussed by contemporary scientists, notably, Fritjof Capra.<br /><br />DISCUSSION:<br />When elements interact, the interaction forms a system.<br /><br />The elements could be anything.<span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> People. Financial instruments. Building components. Electronic sub circuits. Software subroutines. Or a combination of the afore mentioned. </span><br /><br />When elements come together to form a system, <u>certain system level properties come into being, properties that cannot be attributed to the system's elements or designer's intent.</u><br /><br />The last part is worth repeating - <span style="font-size:120%; color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">"properties that cannot be attributed to the designer's intent."</span><br /><br />Named <big>emergent phenomena/properties</big>, such phenomena/properties cannot be pre estimated.<br /><br />Some simple examples of Emergence:<br /><table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><td>Example 1 from Chemistry:<br> Properties of water are very different from properties of its physical constituents, i.e. Hydrogen and Oxygen. By knowing just the properties of Hydrogen and Oxygen, no one could predict or pre estimate the properties of water.<br /><br />Example 2 from Chemistry: <br />Nitrogen gas is odourless. Hydrogen gas is odourless. But Ammonia (NH<sub>3</sub>) has a very strong odour. Can anyone have predicted this? And where does the odour come from?<br /><br />NH<sub>3</sub> is a SYSTEM. Nitrogen and Hydrogen are constituents. NH<sub>3</sub>'s odour is a system level emergent property.<br /></td></tr></table><br /><br />Quote <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence">Wiki:Emergence:</a><br /><br />"In philosophy, emergence is often understood to be a much stronger claim about the etiology of a system's properties. An emergent property of a system, in this context, is one that is not a property of any component of that system, but is still a feature of the system as a whole."<br /><br />________________________________<br /><block quote="">From <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/">Plato.Stanford.Edu</a><br /><br />"Emergent entities (properties or substances) ‘arise’ out of more fundamental entities and yet are ‘novel’ or ‘irreducible’ with respect to them. (For example, it is sometimes said that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain.)"<br /><br />All <span style="font-size:120%;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">organised bodies</span></span> are composed of parts, similar to those composing inorganic nature, and which have even themselves existed in an inorganic state; but the phenomena of life, which result from the juxtaposition of those parts in a certain manner,<span style="font-size:120%;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">bear no analogy to any of the effects which would be produced by the action of the component substances considered as mere physical agents."</span></span></block><br />____________________________________<br /><br />In the above passages, the authors are talking about biological systems. However, the concept would apply to all kinds of systems. Be it an engineering system, a human system in an organisation, it could be anything.<br /><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">Question: Can we pre estimate or predict system level emergent properties before a system comes into being, if we have detailed knowledge of the components? <br /><br />Answer: No. Because the emergent properties of a system will arise only after its elements actually start interacting.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.incose.org/Chicagoland/docs/LA/Emergent%20Behavior%20of%20SoS.pdf"><img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/tech/SNAG-0039.jpg" width=96%></a><br /><small>Source:<a href="http://www.incose.org">Incose.Org</a></small><br /><br /><block quote>A passage from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence#Definitions">Wikipedia:Emergence</a><br /><br />Every resultant is either a sum or a difference of the co-operant forces; their sum, when their directions are the same -- their difference, when their directions are contrary. Further, every resultant is clearly traceable in its components, because these are homogeneous and commensurable. It is otherwise with emergents, when, instead of adding measurable motion to measurable motion, or things of one kind to other individuals of their kind, there is a co-operation of things of unlike kinds. <span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">The emergent is unlike its components </span></span>insofar as these are incommensurable, and it cannot be reduced to their sum or their difference. (Lewes 1875, p. 412) (Blitz 1992)</block quote><br /><br /><table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><td>Nature of Emergent properties, from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergentism">Wiki: Emergentism</a><br /><br />"Some philosophers hold that emergent properties causally interact with more fundamental levels, an idea known as downward causation. Others maintain that higher-order properties simply supervene over lower levels without direct causal interaction."</td></tr></table><br /><br /><table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><td>Visualisation:<br />1. Emergent properties of an air conditioning system.<br />2. Emergent properties of a building's electrical network.<br />3. Emergent properties of a financial portfolio.<br />4. Emergent properties of a group of people, in any scenario.</td></tr></table><br /><br />Summary:<br />'Emergence' is a 'systems concept', and it applies to all kinds of systems - people systems, money systems, engineering systems, stellar systems, sub atomic systems, hydronic systems, digital networks.<br /><br />Recommended A:<br /><br />1. <a href="http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/ca/4">Non Deterministic Emergence</a><br />2. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergentism">Wiki: Emergentism</a><br /><br />Recommended B: <br /><br />"A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down" is a 2005 physics book by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_B._Laughlin">Robert B. Laughlin</a>, a winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics. It argues against the overuse of reductionism, and argues for emergence as a replacement for reductionism."<br /><br /><center><b>End Note:<br /><br />A note on the misrepresentation of science by many science writers, in response to a rather shabby article on EMERGENCE.</b></center><br /><br />Left at <a href="http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/04/st_essay_particles/">WIRED</a> by "Lost7176":<br /><br />"I would contend that, more often then not, it is not the scientific approach or the scientists that take the wrong approach, but rather the media and public. As someone who has conducted experiments in neuroscience, I have heard, first hand, professors turn down press releases, because they could despairingly see how the media would generalize specific findings to the point of absurd impracticality.<br /><br />Scientists know, and students are cautioned, to never state more than the data suggests. This is why statistical tests are performed (to minimize chance of error), this is why theories are never declared proven (only supported), and this is why the scientific process is ever ongoing. To declare that modern science is reductionist and otherwise blind to the complexities of nature misrepresents the scientific process and the scientific community. While certainly some scientists and many media outlets may exaggerate the significance of certain findings, it is only through scrutinizing specific traits and techniques that we can improve experiments, increase controls, refine theories, and ultimately progress toward a more complete (though never final) understanding of the world around us."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-4450504380254841842012-03-08T05:45:00.039+05:302012-07-28T18:55:03.669+05:30Brick, Cement, Concrete - I<img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 34%; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://www.wpclipart.com/science/atoms_molecules/atom_stylized.png" />Introduction:<br /><i>Atoms, protons, electrons, are mathematical constructs. Nature has no building blocks. It appears to be a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrap_model">bootstrapped wholeness</a> in which matter has no absolute existence or any other absolute quality. All is subject to observation.</i><br /><br />Elaboration:<br /><br />This is a post on Quantum Physics.<br /><br />The title of the blog entry is deliberate, to signify that the patterns and interconnections that exist at the sub-atomic level exist very much even at the Macro level.<br /><br /><table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><td>The deeper one's understanding of nature's self similarity (across scales and disciplines) the better a decision maker one becomes.</td></tr></table><br /><br />Firstly some passages from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tao_of_Physics">'The Tao Of Physics".</a><br /><br />From Chapter 4, "A New Physics"<br /><br />[ "No Basic Building Blocks of Matter"]<br /><br /><br />"Quantum theory has demolished the classical concepts of solid objects and of strictly deterministic laws of nature.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">At the subatomic level, the solid material objects of classical physics dissolve into wave-like patterns of probabilities</span>, and these patterns, ultimately, do not represent probabilities of things, but rather probabilities of interconnections.<br /><br />A careful analysis of the process of observation in atomic physics has shown that the subatomic particles have no meaning as isolated entities, but can only be understood as interconnections between the preparation of an experiment and the subsequent measurement.<br /><br />Quantum theory thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe. It shows that we cannot decompose the world into independently existing smallest units. <span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated ‘basic building blocks’, but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of the whole.</span><br /><br /><table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><td>["Irreducible Observer-Observed continuum", "No Objective Description Possible"]<br /><br />These relations always include the observer in an essential way. The human observer constitutes the final link in the chain of observational processes, and the properties of any atomic object can only be understood in terms of the object’s interaction with the observer.</td></tr></table><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">This means that the classical ideal of an objective description of nature is no longer valid.</span> The Cartesian partition between the I and the world, between the observer and the observed, cannot be made when dealing with atomic matter. In atomic physics, we can never speak about nature without, at the same time, speaking about ourselves."<br />________________<br /><br /><table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><td><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">The last statement of the above passage is interesting. Why just in atomic physics? This would apply to nature at all scales.<br /><br />Modified Capra statement: "We can never speak about nature without, at the same time, speaking about ourselves."</span></td></tr></table><br /><br /><br />And now a quick look at the viewpoint of Neils Bohr, a man deeply rooted in classical physics:<br /><br />Quote Plato.Stanford.Edu:<br /><br />• "Bohr saw quantum mechanics as a generalization of classical physics although it violates some of the basic ontological principles on which classical physics rests."<br /><br />• "Bohr thought of the atom as real. Atoms are neither heuristic nor logical constructions."<br /><br />• "Bohr flatly denied the ontological thesis that the subject has any direct impact on the outcome of a measurement."<br /><br />• "Bohr said "there is no quantum world. There is only an abstract physical description."<br /><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">By saying "only an abstract physical description" Bohr could be reminding us of the non traversable gap between the map and the territory. Formulae of Physics and Engineering are maps. The system in operation is territory.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">Territories have qualities to them that maps, which are mere descriptions, can't ever have.</span><br /><br />It seems to me that for Bohr, sub atomic particles are as real* or as unreal as objects of the macro world.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">"Macro world" = Interconnections, interactions. [Descriptions of]</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">"Sub atomic world" = Interconnections, interactions. [Descriptions of]</span><br /><br />So Bohr could be be saying:<br />•There is no quantum world. Micro and Macro are just a matter of zoom/scale. In all cases, all we have are abstract physical descriptions.•<br /><br />Like Bohr says:<br />"It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature."<br /><br />*Bohr says:<br />"We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down. The word "reality" is also a word, a word which we must learn to use correctly."<br /><br /><br /><table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><td>Conclusion from Niels Bohr's general viewpoint:<br /><br />The territory of the "sub atomic world" would be much richer than what we know, and will ever know. Because the gap between the map and the territory is non traversable.</td></tr></table><br /><br />___________________<br /><br />And finally back to Fritjof Capra.<br /><br />My understanding of Capra's overall perspective:<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">•There is particle nature, but no particle.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">There is solidness, but no solid.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">There is wave nature, but no wave.•</span><br />____________________<br /><br />Supporting Quotes by Fritjof Capra:<br /><br />".....the entire [probability] pattern represents the electron at a given time. Within the pattern, we cannot speak about the electron’s position...."<br /><br />"The waves associated with particles, however, are not ‘real’ three-dimensional waves, like water waves or sound waves, but are ‘probability waves’;....probabilities of finding the particles in various places and with various properties."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-27074712256458985032011-11-09T13:42:00.030+05:302014-09-15T23:37:30.039+05:30ACREX 2011Some things that caught my fancy at ACREX 2011.<br />
<center><br />
The entry.<br />
<img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/acrex2011/24022011700.jpg" width="97%" /><br />
<br />
Too many exhibitors..<br />
<img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/acrex2011/26022011714.jpg" width="97%" /><br />
<br />
A <span style="font-size:110%;color:#cc2b00;"><i>Green Chilling Machine</i></span> by <b>International Coils Ltd.</b>, (chills water that is supplied to a building, used to cool the building air using Air Handling Units.)<br />
<img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/acrex2011/25022011701.jpg" width="97%" /><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size:120%;color:#cc2b00;">Ducts for carrying cold air, made of fabric.</span> They have excellent noise reduction properties, put little weight on the building skeleton, and can be removed and washed.<br />
<br />
A manufacturer has introducted an <big>internal skeleton for fabric ducts</big>, so that they won't collapse if suction pressure, pressure that can cause implosion, is applied. <a href="http://www.ductsox.com/ductsoxweb/ductsoxproduct.nsf/vContentEntries/Fabric-Specialty+Products+SkeleCore%E2%84%A2+-+Cylindrical+Tensioning+Device%21OpenDocument" target="_blank">Skelecore™ by Ductsox</a><br />
<img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/acrex2011/26022011736.jpg" width="97%" /><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size:110%;color:#cc2b00;">Fabric duct interfaced with a fan.</span> They have been used for industrial applications too.<br />
<img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/acrex2011/26022011738.jpg" width="97%" /><br />
<br />
---BEGIN NET ZERO---<br />
<br />
The <span style="font-size:110%;color:#cc2b00;"><b>"Net Zero"</big></b></span> house, aims to consume only as much energy it produces. In the following demonstration, energy is produced using Solar Cells you see on the roof. It has the provision to store energy that is in excess of its requirements.<br />
<img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/acrex2011/26022011711.jpg" width="97%" /><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size:140%;color:#cc2b00;">Schematics of the Net Zero demo</span> house..a small garden in the central courtyard provides cool air to the rooms through evaporative cooling; as well as diffused natural light.<br />
<img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/acrex2011/26022011730.jpg" width="97%" /><br />
<br />
The well insulated walls and roof and special frames, glass, reduce the heat gain by the house in summers, which reduces the cooling necessary.<br />
<img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/acrex2011/26022011729.jpg" width="97%" /><br />
<br />
Orientation too is important for reducing heat gain.<br />
<img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/acrex2011/26022011728.jpg" width="97%" /><br />
<br />
More schematics of Net Zero demo.<br />
<img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/acrex2011/26022011725.jpg" width="97%" /><br />
<br />
Photo of the <span style="font-size:140%;color:#cc2b00;">central courtyard of the Net Zero demo.</span> The greenery provides evaporative cooling. And diffuses light into the rooms.<br />
<img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/acrex2011/26022011721.jpg" width="97%" /><br />
<br />
More photos of the <span style="font-size:120%;color:#cc2b00;">central courtyard of the Net Zero demo.</span><br />
<img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/acrex2011/26022011720.jpg" width="97%" /><br />
<img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/acrex2011/26022011715.jpg" width="97%" /><br />
<br />
Bathroom of the Net Zero demo, tends to rely on natural lighting, during the day.<br />
<img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/acrex2011/26022011716.jpg" width="97%" /><br />
<br />
Art <big>outside the Net Zero house demo</big>, made entirely out of waste materials.<br />
<img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/acrex2011/26022011735.jpg" width="97%" /><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size:140%;color:#cc2b00;">Garden surrounding the</span> "Net Zero" house demo. Solar powered garden lamps.<br />
<img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/acrex2011/26022011733.jpg" width="97%" /><br />
<br />
<br />
---END NET ZERO----<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size:120%;color:#cc2b00;">Wireless Data Monitoring system,</span> interfaces between devices and human controllers. What a relief it would be, to get rid of all those wires...<br />
<img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/acrex2011/26022011710.jpg" width="97%" /><br />
<br />
<!--Duct insulation, to ensure that the heat exchange between a duct and its surroundings is minimal.
(Glasswool Insulation)
<img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/acrex2011/26022011709.jpg" width="97%" /><br />
<br />
More Duct Insulation (Nitrile Closed Cell Foam insulation)<br />
<img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/acrex2011/26022011707.jpg" width="97%" /><br />
<br />
More Duct Insulation (Polystyrene Foam insulation)<br />
<img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/acrex2011/26022011706.jpg" width="97%" /><br />
<br />
And some more duct insulation...(Polyethylene Crosslink Foam insulation)<br />
<img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/acrex2011/26022011705.jpg" width="97%" />--><br />
<br />
An <span style="font-size:140%;color:#cc2b00;">Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) control device</span>..it has a Carbon dioxide sensor attached to an exhaust fan mounted on a volume control damper.<br />
<br />
When the Carbon dioxide level in the air conditioned space increases beyond a point, the sensor switches on the Exhaust fan.<br />
<br />
<img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/acrex2011/continental.jpg" width=97%><br />
<img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/acrex2011/10032011749.jpg" width=97%><br />
</center>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-76191077836709458302011-10-05T16:39:00.015+05:302013-01-31T04:19:33.749+05:30Discontinuity<img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 50%; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/discontinuous.jpg">Firstly, the "Dichotomy Paradox" as highlighted by Aristotle. <br />
<table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><td><br />
<big><b><span style="font-size:110%;color:#cc2b00;">The dichotomy paradox</span></b></big><br />
<br />
“That which is in locomotion must arrive at the half-way stage before it arrives at the goal.”<br />
<br />
—Aristotle, Physics VI:9, 239b10</td></tr>
</table><br />
Now let us come to DISCONTINUITY.<br />
<br />
Let us assume that SYSTEMS flow in a smooth, continuous manner, assuming every possible numeric state while transiting from one physical state to another.<br />
<br />
Now let's look at the following:<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size:110%;color:#cc2b00;">Notation: ≈N means "Approximately number N"</span></b><br />
<br />
Assume that the 'continuous system' moves from ≈1 to ≈2.<br />
<br />
To move from ≈1 to ≈2, it has to pass through 1.5<br />
<br />
To move from ≈1 to ≈1.5, it has to pass through 1.25<br />
<br />
To move from ≈1 to ≈1.25, it has to pass through 1.125<br />
<br />
To move from ≈1 to ≈1.125 it has to pass through 1.0625.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size:120%;color:#cc2b00;">AD INFINITUM.</span></b><br />
<br />
<big><b>Statement A:</b></big><br />
<br />
<table bgcolor="#efad4e" border="0" frame=box><tr><td>"The SYSTEM passes through infinite physical states as it changes configuration."</td></tr>
</table><br />
<br />
Observation:<br />
<br />
For passing through an infinite number of physical configurations, a system would take infinite time. You cannot have a system that can undergo infinite changes in state in finite time.<br />
<br />
<b><big>i.e., the above mentioned system cannot move at all.</big></b><br />
<br />
The system can only move if it JUMPS and if it jumps it misses certain points. And that means it is <b><span style="font-size:120%;color:#cc2b00;">NOT CONTINUOUS.</span></b><br />
<br />
<center><b>Moving further......</b></center><br />
<br />
There cannot be any fixed pattern as far as the length of the jump is concerned.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size:120%;color:#cc2b00;"><i>The system can make only random jumps while changing configuration.</i></span></b><br />
<br />
The system might jump from ≈1 to ≈1.2 to ≈1.4 to ≈1.9 to ≈2.<br />
<br />
There is no law that it has to move in an <b>increasing</b> manner either.<br />
<br />
It could jump from ≈1 to ≈1.4 to ≈1.9 to ≈1.3 and then wham ≈2.1.<br />
<br />
It cannot cover all the numeric states between ≈1 and ≈2.<br />
<br />
Nor can we ever predict how many jumps it will take before it reaches ≈2.<br />
<br />
<b>The following text is from "CHAOS: Making a New Science" by James Gleick, page 92-93.</b><br />
<br />
<table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><td><br />
The Noah Effect means discontinuity: when a quantity changes, it can change arbitrarily fast. <br />
<br />
Economists traditionally imagined that prices changed smoothly - rapidly or slowly, as the case may be, but smoothly in the sense that they pass through all the intervening levels on their way from one point to another. <br />
<br />
That image of motion was borrowed from physics, like much of the mathematics applied to economics. But it was wrong. <br />
<br />
Prices can change in instantaneous jumps, as swiftly as a piece of news can flash across a teletype wire and a thousand brokers can change their minds. <b><span style="font-size:110%;color:#cc2b00;">A stock market strategy was doomed to fail, Mandelbrot argued, if it assumed that a stock would have to sell for $50 at some point on its way down from $60 to $10.</span></b></td> </tr>
</table><br />
<br />
<b>Niels Bohr also talked about discontinuity,</b> although in the context of sub atomic scales. <br />
<br />
<i>But there is no reason why discontinuity would exist on the quantum scale only, and not on scales we classify as the 'everyday physical world.' The stock price discontinuity that Mandelbrot talks of, is, after all a pattern in the 'everyday physical world'.</i><br />
<br />
<b>Back to Bohr & Discontinuity:</b><br />
<br />
From <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/">Plato.Stanford.Edu</a><br />
<br />
Bohr saw quantum mechanics as a generalization of classical physics although it <span style="font-size:110%;color:#cc2b00;"><b>violates some of the basic ontological principles</b></span> on which classical physics rests.<br />
<br />
These principles are:<br />
<br />
• The principle of causality, i.e., every event has a cause;<br />
<br />
• The principle of determination, i.e., every later state of a system is uniquely determined by any earlier state;<br />
<br />
<table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><td><b>• <span style="font-size:110%;color:#cc2b00;">The principle of continuity, i.e., all processes exhibiting a difference between the initial and the final state have to go through every intervening state;</span></b></td></tr>
</table><br />
• The principle of the conservation of energy, i.e., the energy of a closed system can be transformed into various forms but is never gained, lost or destroyed.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Further reading:<br />
<br />
1. <a href="http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v7/n8/full/nphys2060.html">"Differentiating the Discontinuous" by Mark Buchanan, Nature Physics 7, (2011)</a><br />
<br />
.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-49258488097078507332011-10-02T15:36:00.004+05:302011-10-02T20:45:26.294+05:30The Pressure Regulating ValveVery easy to understand video on how a <big><b>Pressure Regulating Valve</b></big> works.<br /><br /><center><object width="533" height="400"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/sFAYW_D3G_g?version=3&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/sFAYW_D3G_g?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="533" height="400" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></center>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-12499666195203769162011-07-24T02:42:00.017+05:302012-07-21T17:51:14.236+05:30Decision Making.The following graphic was made by a <a href="http://web.mit.edu/persci/people/adelson/checkershadow_illusion.html" target="_blank">professor at MIT</a>. To highlight how easy it is for the senses to be fooled.
<br />
<br />On to the graphic...
<br />
<br />The squares marked "A" and "B" are the same shade of grey.
<br />
<br /><span style="font-size:110%;color:#cc2b00;"><b><u>i.e., THEY ARE OF IDENTICAL COLOUR.</u></b></span>
<br />
<br /><b>A≡Colour Code RGB(120, 120, 120).
<br />B≡Colour Code RGB(120, 120, 120).
<br /></b>
<br /><center><img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/checkershadow_illusion4full.jpg" width=80%">
<br />
<br />EVIDENCE:
<br /><center><object width="560" height="349"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/z9Sen1HTu5o?version=3&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/z9Sen1HTu5o?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="349" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></center>
<br />
<br /><table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr>
<br /><td>QUESTIONS:
<br />
<br />As we go about our lives everyday, <b>is the reality of what we perceive always what we think it is?</b>
<br />
<br /><span style="font-size:130%;color:#cc2b00;"><b>Or is our perception of the daily environment a bit like the squares A and B story?</b>
<br /></span>
<br /></td>
<br /></tr></table></center>
<br />
<br /><center>UPDATE</center>
<br />
<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;color:#cc2b00;">Indeterminism</span> is the concept that events (certain events, or events of certain types) are not caused, or not caused deterministically (cf. causality) by prior events.
<br />
<br /><i>In light of the above, the elusive nature of perception, and Indeterminism, how should we change our approach to decision making?
<br />
<br />1. If causation is weak and the future is indeterminate, should our complete focus be on <span style="font-weight:bold;color:#cc2b00;">fortification of current assets and reduction of current bad liabilities, instead of future projections?</span>
<br />
<br />2. If perception is elusive, which it certainly is, should this totally alter the way we have been taking decisions till date? The only answer that comes to my mind currently is <span style="font-weight:bold;color:#cc2b00;">"Do not tamper too much, too suddenly."</span></i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-57612713722973899982011-05-22T12:01:00.027+05:302023-03-28T11:32:02.204+05:30David Hume - Causation & Habit<code>Introduction:<br>
<br>
Observation of the environment is the primary catalyst to knowledge; reasoning is not really too helpful. <br>
<br>
Very elusive, in fact. <br>
<table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame="box"><tbody><tr><td><center><big><b>THOUGHT EXERCISE.</b></big></center><br>
<br>
An alien from a distant galaxy - who has seen all the parts of the human body, but has never seen or interacted with a human being - can he ever through logic & reasoning figure out what human life is all about?<br>
<br>
Can he figure out human indulgences/qualities like laughter, dance, music, money, movies, religion etc.<br>
<br>
Ans: Impossible.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br>
<br>
The following article on <b><big>habitual expectation versus the actual flow of events</big></b>, reminds me of the 'Noah Effect' and the 'Joseph Effect' from page 92-93 of James Gleick's book, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos:_Making_a_New_Science">Chaos.</a><br>
<br>
"Mandelbrot described both the "Noah effect" (in which sudden discontinuous changes can occur) and the "Joseph effect" (in which persistence of a value can occur for a while, yet suddenly change afterwards." - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory" target="_blank">Wikipedia.</a></code><br>
______________________________________________<br>
<br>
<center><b>"David Hume - Causation & Habit"<br>
by <a href="http://www.marcobrien.org.uk" target="_blank">Marc O'Brien</a></b></center><br>
When David Hume said we do not know anything of the essence of causal relations but rather that we merely develop <strong>habits</strong> he sort of means that because we utterly fail to see what happens between billiard balls when one hits the other, we merely see one hit the other and describe such abstractions as a conservation of momentum, but we have no way of knowing whether what we see is necessary, we know not why, for example, the second ball doesn't turn into a frog on impact, thus we cannot reason to the results and instead we simply, and quite primitively, develop habitual expectations.<br>
<br>
<center><img src="http://photos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/247141_1977668316702_1092933337_32323788_764967_a.jpg"></center><br>
<br>
Reason told man for centuries that heavier objects fall faster than light objects. Experiment discovered different. (Although Epicurus seems to have actually known this) But since our post Epicurean experiments we now expect that all masses in a vacuum fall at the same rate of acceleration but we still do not know why - we so far can only describe the way things fall - thus what we expect to happen is only expected by habit of mind and not because we can predict what happens by simply looking first at objects to be dropped and then second at the planet or moon etc nearby.<br>
<br>
And because we so far do not have knowledge of any such causal phenomena we cannot know whether it is possible for something to come from nothing.<br>
<br>
<span style="font-size:110%;color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"><b><i>If we could pick up two billiard balls after having been just come into being - say having just been created - where we so far have no experience of objects of any sort - we could not look at the two billiard balls and simply from their appearance reason to what happens when they collide on a billiard table.</i></b></span> If we were able to reason such we would also have been able to reason precisely to what happens if the double slit experiments, of all kinds, are carried out.<br>
<br>
But instead we are surprised to see what happens when we carry out the double slit experiment - but also despite us not understanding why what happens does happen we thereafter the first double slit experiment, by pure <strong>habit</strong>, go onto to expect what happened in the first experiment to go on happening in subsequent experiments. But our expectations are of <strong>habit</strong> in nature and not of understanding in nature.<br>
<br>
When I imagine the double slit experiments now, firing one electron at a time at double slits, I fully expect an interference pattern to occur on the wall behind. My mind has so come to expect this that if something different would happen I would be surprised all over again. But without reason to explain why what happens does happen my expectations are nothing but <strong>habit</strong>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-58516483285752506362011-01-17T05:55:00.000+05:302011-01-17T05:56:16.505+05:30Market PressureAn interesting graphic on Market Pressure...sign of the times...<br /><br /><center><img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/17671_g.png" width=95%></center><br /><br />You can read the rest of the analysis at: <a href="http://www.safehaven.com/article/17671/asset-allocation-polishing-the-turd" target="_blank">Safe Haven</a>.<br /><br />Another interesting analysis: <a href="http://oil-price.net/en/articles/rising-oil-prices-predict-economic-recession.php" target="_blank">Oil Price as predictor of recession.</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-80886203312400295022010-07-08T16:07:00.002+05:302014-09-15T23:37:52.376+05:30A look at 'Green Buildings'<img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 40%; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/tech/greenbuilding21.png"><b><big>WHY GREEN CAN BE WASH.<br />
<a href="http://www.buildingscience.com/index_html" target="_blank">Joseph W. Lstiburek</a><br />
Ph.D., P. Eng.</big></b> <br />
(ASHRAE Journal.)<br />
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Many “green” buildings don’t save energy.<br />
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Why? They have too much glass, they are overventilated, they are leaky to air, they are fraught with thermal bridges and they rely on gimmicks and fads rather than physics.<br />
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Basically, the current green and sustainability craze can be summed up as architects and engineers behaving badly. The good news is that most of this nonsense can be easily remedied.<br />
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The bad news is that the failures are beginning to bubble to the surface, and we are in danger of ruining the “green brand.”<br />
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Before you can have a “green” building, you need a building that can stand up, not be blown away in a hurricane, not fall down in an earthquake, not burn, not leak rainwater, not be moldy, not rot, not corrode and otherwise be able to meet applicable building codes such as having a basic provision for ventilation like that specified by Standard 62.1.<br />
<br />
<b><big><font color="#cc2b00">So what’s with all these “green” programs providing “points” for “durability” and “indoor air quality?”<br />
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I mean it’s pretty pathetic if we have to reward architects and engineers when they provide details and specifications that should be basic to fundamental practice. If you design and install a controlled ventilation system that meets Standard 62, you get points. You get more points if you keep the rain out and design the building to dry if it becomes wet. And, you get still more points if the occupants are actually comfortable. Aren’t these code requirements?</big></b><br />
<br />
<b><big>Shouldn’t these be “the standard of care?”</font></big></b><br />
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Have we architects and engineers sunk so low that we now get points if we meet basic building requirements that all buildings should meet to be called buildings?<br />
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Green programs waste a lot of time and money on stuff that is obvious and more time and money on stuff that is irrelevant or unimportant.<br />
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How about focusing on stuff that is important? It’s become all about the points and the important stuff gets ignored. <br />
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Chasing “green points” doesn’t get you good buildings that are truly green. You can get a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design® (LEED) rating and not save any energy compared to traditional buildings. How can that possibly be green?<br />
<table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><td>The rest of the text is available at <a href="http://www.smacna.org/pdf/ACF222B.pdf" target="_blank">SMACNA.</a></td> </tr>
</table><br />
<br />
<b><big>Further Reading:</big></b><br />
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1. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_building" target="_blank">Wiki: Green Building.</a><br />
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2. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadership_in_Energy_and_Environmental_Design" target="_blank">Wiki: LEED.</a><br />
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3. <a href="http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CategoryID=19" target="_blank">USGBC: LEED.</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-35258118184628552302009-10-19T10:14:00.001+05:302014-02-03T13:04:57.906+05:30Power Quality - 2Some more examples of how Electrical Noise can be dealt with.<br />
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<strong><span style="color:#990000;">There are NO 'RIGHT' or 'WRONG' solutions. All depends on the situtation. Please do not try to implement these solutions without the help of an electrical engineer who has surveyed your premises.</span></strong><br />
____<br />
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In Diagram 2, the delicate electronic devices circuit is <strong><span style="color:#990000;">completely</span> <span style="color:#990000;">cushioned</span></strong> from its surroundings via an Isolation Transformer.<br />
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<center><br />
<img src="http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/tt86/xvolver22/d2.jpg" width="650" /><br />
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In Diagram 3, the <span style="color:#990000;"><strong>Online UPS has also been isolated</strong></span> from the surroundings.<br />
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<img src="http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/tt86/xvolver22/d3.jpg" width="650" /></center>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-43559425342823381162009-10-17T10:17:00.001+05:302023-03-23T17:40:04.772+05:30Fixing A Broken FoundationRecently helped a friend fix his <span style="color:#990000;"><strong><font size="4">DAMAGED & LEAKY UNDERGROUND WALL</font></strong></span> due to which water was leaking into the basement when it rained heavily.<br /><br /><span style="color:#990000;"><strong><font size="5">We were in a hurry....</font><br /><br /><font size="4">We did not want it to rain and flood the pit we had dug, that would have been catastrophic...would have drowned the basement and destroyed expensive equipment.</font></strong></span><br /><br /><b>Time for completion of work: 55 hours...and <font size="5">LOTS OF PRAYER.</font></b><br /><br /><center>Drawing of the cross section of the damaged wall. Dotted vertical lines show the missing part of the wall.<br /><img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/e50-1.jpg"><br /><br /><center>The damaged wall, as seen from outside. We had to dig 9 feet deep.</center><img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/02082009243.jpg"><br /><br /><br />Horrible condition...An old tree’s roots (now no longer existing) can be seen entering the basement wall. Holes in the wall are huge and visible.<br /><img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/Picture4.jpg"><br /><img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/333301.jpg"><br /><br /><br /><center>Work In Process...below.</center><br /><br /><center>Leak discovered in public drainage system. When water comes through such leaks during monsoon clogging of drains, it comes with <span style="color:#990000;"><strong><font size="5">‘hammering’</font></strong></span> and considerable <span style="color:#990000;"><strong><font size="5">back pressure.</font></strong></span></center><br /><img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/E50-04.jpg"><br /><br /><br />Filling up the broken underground wall...and re-inforcing with stone...<br /><img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/333302.jpg"><br /><br /><br /><center>Finished, Totally Re-inforced, Leak Proof Wall....Underground rain water cannot leak in anymore!</center><br /><img src="http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/vikram-madan/Tech-01/E50-09.jpg"><br /><br /><br /><center><table bgcolor="#efefef" border="0" frame=box><tr><br /><td><br /><strong><span style="color:#990000;">Download the detailed PowerPoint presentation of the above process HERE -- </span></strong><a href="https://usaupload.com/6UZk/Case_Study.pps" target="_blank"><strong>Case Study</strong></a><br /><br /></td><br /></tr></table></center></center>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-650491620272994212.post-18625363602407207482009-10-02T11:48:00.001+05:302014-02-03T13:05:13.195+05:30Power Quality - 1This blog entry can be used by the SOHO segment user to take care of sensitive electronic devices in his/her premises.<br />
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The objective is to provide CLEAN NOISELESS POWER* to sensitive electronic devices.<br />
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It is highly recommended that an audit of the premises be done by an expert before any suggestions in this blog entry are implemented.<br />
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* Clean, noiseless power is power that is free of voltage spikes, surges, and miscellaneous distortion. <br />
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<b><font color="#852610">Noisy power has potential to cause huge damage, especially to delicate electronic devices.<br />
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Slow damage that is not easy to attribute to noisy electricity.<br />
___<br />
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<quote>Measurement of Electrical Noise:<br />
<br />
1) In terms of "TOTAL HARMONIC DISTORTION OF THE WAVEFORM."<br />
2) In terms of Decibels.</quote><br />
</font></b><br />
________________<br />
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<b><font color="#852610">Diagram 1 is an example solution</font></b> to the problem of noisy electricity in the small-medium office/home segment. It is not the only solution. Can be used as a guide though. The solution that is right for you depends on many things, and a power audit by a professional is necessary.<br />
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The devices shown in Diagram 1 are.<br />
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1) <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltage_stabilizer" target="_blank">Voltage Stabiliser</a></b> for stabilising voltage from Electric Company.<br />
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2) <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolation_transformer" target="_blank">Isolation Transformer</a></b> - Acts as an electrical cushion around your building to save it from electrical noise from the neighbourhood. It does this by ISOLATING your building, electrically. Also purifies and filters power.<br />
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3) <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_(electricity)" target="_blank">Earthing Stations</a></b> - For getting rid of leaking electricity. Electrical trashcans. <b><font color="#852610"> Very important, to keep the quality of power good.</font></b><br />
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4) <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninterruptible_power_supply" target="_blank">Online UPS</a></b> - A device that purifies power to ensure that only high quality, clean, noiseless power reaches the devices connected to it.<br />
_________________<br />
<br />
<center><b>Diagram 1</b><br />
<img src="http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/tt86/xvolver22/d1.jpg" width="650"><br />
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Photo of a simple Earthing Station. (Rod/Stake Type)<br />
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<img src="http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/tt86/xvolver22/earthstake1.jpg" width="650"><br />
Image Ctsy. <a href="http://www.rcoombs.co.uk/safety.htm" target="_blank">http://www.rcoombs.co.uk/safety.htm</a></center><br />
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People very often neglect the earthing in their building. This is a very wrong practice. Will be covered in a separate blog entry.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0