Freedom vs Predation

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Americans, especially those of a particular political bent, love to exclaim that we love and cherish freedom. In America, the word ‘freedom’ is frequently used to amp up political rhetoric and to make people’s chests swell with pride with the aim of making us more receptive to a message. Particularly when playing Lee Greenwood’s song God bless the USA. This will not be the (n + 1)th valentine to freedom. Instead, my purpose is to reexamine a basic idea, i.e., certain pragmatics of freedom.

In America we thrive on a lumpy blend of civil liberties, freedoms and capitalistic ideals. Leading capitalists are both adored and despised, but not universally. Among many, being a millionaire or billionaire is tantamount to sainthood because if they are so rich, they must be doing something right. Luck is never part of the equation. In much of the USA, capitalism is raised to the level of a sacred obligation. Its principles are taken on hearsay or faith, and its boundaries are constantly pressing the limits of the law and ethics. In this way, capitalism is like a gas- it expands to fill the available space. Acquiring everything you can get away with is seen more as the act of a lone ranger. People have always admired a Robin Hood or a Jesse James character. Being one step ahead of the law is viewed as a righteous sport.

There is no doubt that capitalism has raised the level comfort, safety and wealth in America and elsewhere. One of the oft-cited merits of capitalism is that it seeks to raise the efficiency in the use of capital. From a distance that sounds like a dandy goal. Examples of the efficient use of capital are all around us and in ways that we may not recognize. Reducing the cost of doing business while retaining or increasing margins is a prime example of boosting the efficiency of capital. This benefits consumers if prices lower or remain level against inflation. But what about those who may have lost their jobs or their operating margins as the result of someone else’s boost in efficiency?

When the cost of doing business increases due to, say, tariffs, those afflicted are forced to raise their prices to pass along the costs. This is inflationary and most people understand this. But what about businesses not affected as much by tariffs? When they look around and see inflation raising prices by 6 %, aren’t they tempted to raise their prices as well? I would be. If customers are acclimated to inflation generally, they won’t mind if I raise my prices too, will they?

A misconception many people make is that if the cost of some raw material or labor drops, then the retailer will automatically pass that savings along to me. Ah, nope. They’ll bank the increase in margins. Why give away the boost in margins? This is just human nature.

The losses resulting from an increase in another’s raise in efficiency is part of progress. What about the buggy whip makers who went out of business after invention of then automobile? Who cried for them? A Pollyanna might say that they had a chance to expand their horizons into the automobile game.

After word processing became widespread and normal, it coincided with the extinction of the office secretary and typist pools. This helped to make Microsoft very wealthy at the expense of career secretarial staff. Today, most do their own secretarial work. Those who were once secretaries are now called administrative staff. Those of us who use word processors now spend our days on repetitive type setting chores.

Main Point

There comes a point where capitalism discolors into a shade of predatory behavior. The 1941 WC Fields movie Never Give a Sucker an Even Break expresses a sentiment held by many seeking easy money. It says that if I can take your money, you deserve it for being so clueless. In American history there are a great many incidents where a confidence man (conman) persuades an easy mark to part with his or her money. This kind of activity is always simmering somewhere. It involves a proposed cash transaction for something a doe-eyed sucker is anxious to exploit. Usually, the conman receives the cash and disappears leaving the sucker poorer and embarrassed. This extreme example is predatory behavior dressed up as a business transaction.

But capitalistic predators aren’t necessarily lone wolves tracking suckers. Many times, they operate from a store front as a legitimate business. Enron is a glaring example of a capitalistic enterprise that used the energy bull market of the 1990’s, creative accounting tricks and highly complex financial statements to mislead regulators and investors away from their felonious activities. So much money was being made that most were transfixed by their apparent success.

Obviously, business isn’t automatically fraudulent. But within the complex world of finance and accounting there exists a spider web of opportunities to lose your money. Predators may work in the shadows of crimes of omission rather than commission. The big investment people measure their strength and gain status through the contracts they land and the services they bill for. It is all very bewildering to outsiders.

So, what about the commercial onset of artificial intelligence, AI? It promises new vistas and opportunities by those who offer its services. Okay, but how and to whom? AI is already showing its worth in problem solving in many areas. Will AI understand context or counterpoints? Will AI eventually prosecute to the letter or to the spirit of the law? Will AI ever give a person a second chance based on past performance or extenuating circumstances in an HR situation?

Everyone has at some time has benefited from slack in the system, value judgements or another’s faith in your ability to improve. Will AI be used mainly to mete out discipline or strictness on the job? What happens when you are fired by an AI “staff member”? An AI staff member will be able to execute all manner of unpleasant duties in nearly every context. When will we have the right to be judged by a human being?

Is the “Vast Empty Space” of the Atom an Empty Idea?

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I’ve come around on this business of the atom being almost entirely empty space. This is an established bit of folklore in intro chemistry and physics. It dates back to experiments by Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden under Ernest Rutherford, showing how alpha particles could sail through thin gold foil and infrequently, an alpha particle would impact something hard and scatter. The striking thing about the experimental results was just how infrequent the scattering was. The conclusion eventually drawn was that the atoms in the gold were mostly empty space.

But what if that space wasn’t quite empty? What if that space was a beehive of electrons at maybe half light-speed and mutually repelled by one another yet attracted to the nucleus. Each electron is a single point negative charge. The nucleus has a diameter 100,000 times smaller with equal but opposite charge. The strong positive nuclear charge field holds the electrons tightly but only to the to the point where electron-electron repulsion is balanced in atoms with more than two electrons.

The electron is a point charge manifestation of the electromagnetic force, but with mass and angular momentum. It is a perturbation in the electric field. It doesn’t fly like a ball, it exists in the manner of a wave of chance. It has none of what humans think of as material substance, rather it is purely a quantum mechanical manifestation. It is shaped by 3-dimensional standing waves of probability density surrounding the nucleus. This probability density is defined by a spherical harmonic wave series. We chemists know this harmonic series as s, p, d and f “orbitals”. Electron probability density extends from the nucleus to the outer orbitals of the atom with s, p, d, and f orbitals occupying space defined by their unique wave equations.

Source: Wikipedia. The atomic orbital series for the hydrogen atom. The blue fringed shapes represent the space available in each atomic orbital. The orbitals have no reality as “objects” themselves. Instead, they define regions of space that an electron can inhabit. The hydrogen atom is used because there are no complications with electron-electron repulsion. The orbital structure of the hydrogen atom can be defined precisely as an equation. Atoms from lithium and up cannot.

As a reminder, the shape of an orbital itself defines a region of space where an electron of a certain energy is most likely to be found. It is not necessary to be able to calculate the position of the electron moment to moment to understand its properties. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle does not allow for high precision determination of both position and momentum simultaneously, so this is where the universe tells us that ‘ya can’t have everything’. However, energy levels and transitions between them can be measured precisely. Exact position of an electron is not necessary. Besides, the 3-body problem shows up very early in the periodic table and spoils the fun anyway.

The edges of orbitals are not sharp but rather feather off into space and are pragmatically defined by a reasonable certainty as encircling an overall 95 % probability density.

What about the ’empty space’ view of the atom? As previously surmised, the filled concentrically overlapping occupied orbitals of an atom define a region of electron probability density that is not ever empty except for the hydrogen cation, H+.

Recall that the mass of the electron is small, about (1/1800)th that of the proton mass. This says that the space between outer edge of the atom and the nucleus is occupied by the electrons which are in constant motion constrained only by the individual 3-dimensional orbitals.

This forces us the think more clearly about what constitutes ’empty space’ of the atom. That empty space is filled with a diffuse, low mass density swarm of negative charges. Only orbital nodes have zero electron density, but all orbitals have some probability density throughout the interior of the atom.

Perhaps better way to describe the space between electron and nucleus is to simply mention the dimensions of the atom and its nucleus in meters as an example.

And for the Rutherford gold foil experiment, the diffuse electron density around the nucleus would pose little resistance to an alpha particle with its larger momentum passing through, giving the illusion of empty space.

A gold foil of larger thickness will easily block all alpha particles. Alpha’s are stopped by losing their energy to ion formation when passing through matter.

Safety With Corrosives

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Back in my undergraduate days I remember finding the CRC Handbook of Laboratory Safety. One photograph really stuck with me. Years later I decided to replicate it and use the image in chemical safety training.

Picture by Arnold Ziffel.

The picture above shows what happens when a solution of soluble proteins in water is subjected to a large excursion in pH in both directions- both highly acidic and highly basic (caustic). The take home lesson is intended to be “wear your damned safety glasses or face shield”. The obvious comparison is between egg white and your corneas. Both have transparency and proteins.

In reality, there is no comparison between the composition between an egg white and a cornea. The human cornea is far, far more complex in composition and structure. Eggs are widely available and cheap. While we see many human corneas every day, they are attached to living people who would, no doubt, put up a tussle with anyone seeking to abscond with one. For a demo, egg white will have to do.

Ribbon structure of ovalbumin. The flat ribbons are called β-pleated sheets. The helical sections are called an alpha helix. Source: Wikipedia.

The major protein in egg white is the globular phosphoglycoprotein ovalbumin at 54 % abundance. According to Google it is “A major storage protein with phosphorylation properties.” Ovalbumin and human serum albumin share a name but little else. Ovalbumin serves as a storage protein source for developing chicks. Human serum albumin serves to maintain balance in the osmotic pressure of blood and to transport substances in the blood stream.

The egg white image is really about the effects of corrosives on protein. Ovalbumin exposed to strong acid will rearrange its globular structure in a way that renders it insoluble and causes agglomeration. Thus the opaque appearance. Trainees look at the image and, knowing they themselves are made of protein, can silently draw their own conclusions about the risk of getting a corrosive in their eyes.

Moon Base vs Recovering Liberal Democracy

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I need to say that I have been an enthusiastic fan of America’s aerospace activities since the Mercury program in the early 60’s. Aerospace was an instrument of modernization and held promise for a bright and prosperous future. To be sure, America has gotten very good at aerospace since early WWII. The Soviet Union was an early achiever in space flight, ahead of the USA for a time. While they put objects and people in Earth orbit, our rockets blew up on the launch pad. Or so it seems. The Soviets have never been anxious to show the bad with the good.

NASA began the Artemis Program with the aim of America’s return to the moon. Our bragging rights from the 1969 moon landing are gathering cobwebs in the face of international space programs. At home SpaceBro Musk and his SpaceX business is eclipsing NASA in many ways, at least at the surface.

During the Apollo Program, the matter of allocating funds for the moon landing was openly questioned in public. With a list of social issues and a land war in Southeast Asia, why were we throwing cash at the moon? This splash of cold water in the face was largely ignored except for superficial explanations like being something for all mankind to celebrate. Another retort was “look at all of the beneficial technologies that have come from it”. Or the folksier example that Teflon frying plans arose from the space program though not true.

In the mid 1960s, the evening news featured space developments and footage from the Viet Nam “conflict”. We’d see images from the program then footage of F4 Phantoms or B-52s dropping napalm in the jungle. Then we’d hear Walter Cronkite reporting the daily body counts of Viet Cong and US soldiers killed and aircraft shot down. There would be sound bites from Henry Kissinger doing his shuttle diplomacy at the Paris peace talks or pictures of Robert McNamara scurrying with President Johnson out of meetings.

This was a time of contrasts. Glorious space flight against a backdrop of anti-war rioting students, shootings at Kent State, rioting in Chicago, the hippy and civil rights movements. In my locale, the generation of my parents and grandparents were firmly against protesters, conscious objectors and the civil rights movement. Communism must be stopped at any cost. While they could not elaborate on their opposition, they would carefully repeat the words of authority figures who defended clubbing protestors or tear gassing civil rights protesters. Out of respect for my elders, I would try to integrate these views into the overall picture of what I saw. Not until later in high school in another state where I met students who had a clearer understanding of politics did I come around to a more liberal perspective.

“Avoid land wars in Southeast Asia.” Advice from several possible sources.

Today, the President of the United States is close to sending troops to Iran without Congress, allies, or UN approval. Do we remember the Korean, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan wars? Gulf War I ended quickly because President Bush 1 declared victory after liberating Kuwait but before removing Saddam Hussein, who then stayed in power. Later, President Bush 2 invaded Afghanistan and Iraq in a failed attempt to fight terrorism, claiming that Al-Qaeda hates freedom. I have always felt this statement was a diversion and needed questioning. Do terrorists really hate our freedom, or do they oppose our support for Israel or view us as aggressive infidels?

Questions:

  • What tangible imperative sends us to the moon in a time of war and collapsing democracy?
  • A decision was made to shelve the lunar space station project and accelerate establishment of a moon base. Was this decision inflected by the current Iran war difficulties and a White House desire to distract? An easy correlation but difficult to prove secret motives.
  • Establishing an expensive moon base project while simultaneously burning a $1Billion/day in an illegal war of aggression makes sense because …?
  • What is it about stationing humans on the moon that feeds the national interest?
  • Would a Chinese manned moon landing before a US return landing be deleterious in any way other than prestige?
  • What is such prestige actually worth to US manned space progress? So China gets to the moon before our return. We got there by 1969. Does maintaining “leadership” in space internationally require an uninterrupted series of firsts?
  • Is there a scenario where the US will ever direct massive funding for national infrastructure refurbishing as well as better health care for the public?

Aerospace and defense contractors are a national resource and strategically critical to homeland defense. Both the Department of Defense and NASA understand this as well as the need to help keep these companies financially healthy by issuing contracts during the year for spare parts and new projects.

Our country has been in dire need of self-care for many, many election cycles.

As Americans we have opted to ignore aging infrastructure all over the country as a priority. This is a choice. Is the construction industry just too low on the lobbyist pecking order? Is America in need of a stronger construction lobby? Perhaps the home building industry has the bulk of attention.

US Constitutional Trip-Hazard

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It appears that the US has had a particular “trip hazard” within it all along. Not an error of commission so much as an error of omission. We have been so busy heaping praise and devotion to our Constitution that the cold eyes of criticism have not held sway. To be sure, here criticism also means “analysis and judgment of the merits and faults of a literary or artistic work“. For crying out loud, even Einstein’s theory of relativity, which has been endlessly validated, is still subject to criticism yet it is physics and based on mathematics.

Can it be true that the Founders were able to construct a constitution so tight, internally consistent and prescient that the future could never evolve in a way that calls for revision. Seriously, could they have believed this?

The view from 30,000 ft shows that there are circumstances wherein safety rails meant to restrain a runaway President have failed. To date the US President is still subject to many restraints except for a part requiring Congress provide effective a counterweight to the executive. The current circumstance is where the Congress chooses not to summon self-control enough to exert its constitutional responsibility to declare war or not. To declare war is to draft and execute a policy directing the US to summon resources and direct military engagement with another state. This was done properly and for the last time by FDR in 1942 against axis-aligned Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania (Google).

Perhaps the Constitution does not disallow a wide-eyed march into chaos and ruin by majority rule. In other words, within the constraints of this founding document, there are pathways to self-destruction. It is conceivable that the founders hadn’t considered a self-immolation led by a madman in the future. Could they have anticipated that 1 or 2 of the 3 branches of government would choose not to execute its responsibility to provide effective checks and balances? After all, why would rational citizens allow the nation they love to celebrate fall into collapse?

Actually, the Republican majority party in Congress probably doesn’t believe that there is a failure of checks and balances on their part. Why would they challenge the president, their national party leader and lord of the MAGA movement? The Trump network is large and powerful and getting ‘primaried’ is a likely outcome for sheep who stray from the flock.

In effect, accusations of constitutional disobedience spread across all party members is less fearsome than near-term personal electoral defeat. MAGA Republicans fear that their careers hanging separately is more likely than hanging together. Safety in numbers.

Somewhere there is a coterie of planners who, having drafted Project 2025 now underway, are busy plotting the transition to illiberal democracy. Who are these big-money usurpers, and how do we turn the rock over and expose them to the light of day?

Polymer Chemistry for Students

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This is just a short note to remind chemistry students to consider taking a class on polymer chemistry if it is available. While the endless collection of widgets made from synthetic polymers may seem to be tedious as hell, the chemistry and engineering of commodity polymers is really quite fascinating and maybe just a little artsy.

Polyolefin chemistry got very interesting with the development of metallocene catalysts in the 1990s and were later refined to non-metallocene constrained geometry catalysts. Do a keyword search of Catalysts for olefin polymerization in Google Patents and see for yourself. You’ll find that Group IV metals are heavily represented.

My New View of Electricity and Electrons

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Before I went to college I spent 2 years as an apprentice electrician in both residential and commercial wiring. This, plus an early and continuous interest in electronics, I thought I had a good grasp of what electricity was. Only in the last few months in the autumn of my years do I learn that my understanding was just the Dr Seuss version taught in high school.

I sat fat and happy thinking electrical current flowed like water through a pipe. Well, it does not. Wires guide an electric field over the surface of the conductor, moving each electron a tiny distance. The field carries the energy.

A similar situation applies to an electron which, by the way, has no measurable size. There is only an electric field. An electron is a localized disturbance or perturbation in that field that can occupy atomic orbitals or propagate through space. But its “movement” is not like that of a ball sailing through space. It is a kind of pulse in the electric field that has charge and behaves with attributes that people can view and both wave-like and particle-like.

One of the annoying pedagogical tools we can’t get past is the description or illustration of wave motion as an undulation or a squiggle smeared over time. Wave behavior is reciprocating behavior. The view of a water wave as an undulation inferring flow is dead wrong. Water wave motion is vertical, like a fishing bobber. Water waves can be standing in place between barriers or on top of an underlying current. The all too common misunderstanding is in viewing an undulating line itself as the wave rather than the reciprocating movement from peak to trough.

But, if we had properly taught kids about wave motion in the past, would the Beach Boys have been able to sing about catching a wave. I. Just. Don’t. Know.

# 47 Must be physically removed from office

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Unless Trump is physically removed from power, the current conflict in Iran will blossom into WW III as Iran bombs our bases in our allied countries. He will not relinquish the White House voluntarily even if lawfully removed from power, so the Congress must be prepared to drag him off-site. This will be the first step in the recovery of America. His little buddy, JD Vance, cant be trusted either but I don’t know how that can be dealt with.

Not that Iran will beat the US, but with the US distracted and bogged down with its foreign military projects and complete destruction of foreign relations, there is the likelihood of oil shortages throughout Asia. Our opponents will use this lull in US global hegemony to settle scores in other parts of the world. Does the invasion of Cuba really make sense now or ever?

How long will China and everyone else allow the US/Israel war to cripple their oil supplies by the blockade of the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz?

Russia and Iran understand asymmetric warfare. We do not. We strut around thumping our chests bragging about how great we are. Our weapons are indeed impressive as everyone has noticed. If only our grasp of international politics matched our facility with warfare.

N. Korea will use US distraction and it’s overextended military as well as lost international good will to invade S Korea. China may decide to invade Taiwan in a year or two. Do people honestly think that this all consuming American distraction in the Middle East will not be exploited by the bad actors of the world?

Trump is a madman who is leading our country into the graveyard of collapsed empires.

MAGAs are cognitively impaired enough to not see him for what he is and their elected representatives who have circled around him have everything invested in MAGA voters transfixed by him. MAGAs are cognitively impaired enough to not see him for what he is and their elected representatives have circled around him have everything invested in MAGA voters transfixed by him. By cognitively impaired I just mean that the the fear center in their brains can’t let go despite what they see and hear.

Revolutionary New Appendix Cloning Procedure

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3 March, 2026, Poltroon University Medical Center, Guapo, Arizona. University President Arnold Ziffel has announced that for the first time a human appendix has been cloned and successfully implanted into a human cell donor. This long awaited achievement holds the promise of making whole the many traumatized patients who have had their appendices removed. The recipient, Guapo resident Maize McGuffin, is recovering from her procedure and is reportedly in good spirits.

The recipients themselves donate their own stem cells from which the new appendix clone is grown. The clone can be grown in a variety of shapes and sizes to suit the needs of any recipient.

A crucial obstacle was overcome early on when a technique was found to prevent hair growth on the appendix, which was widely viewed as undesirable.