Time and Autism

Autistic people perceive time in a very different way to the rest of the world. It flows much more like a river. Most of the time we are quite happy to let it pass us by absorbed in our own interests. Other people like to have others around them to interact with. These are like stones in the stream. We are objects that slowly but surely get broken down into our constituent parts and distributed across space and time.

I can understand how Einstein came up with the theory of relativity in this way and that it took a couple of years to get the maths to prove his ideas. I can understand how people could think he was autistic too. We do have an unconventional way of thinking that is also systematic. Our ideas do not get respected though until they are profitable as I mentioned in The Current War.

As Autistics brains get stuck thinking about words that were said to them, conversations, events or literally that has happened to them they pick apart everything to find the smallest details possible. In this way they see how to correct mistakes and make things better which others do not but they also miss the bigger picture that everyone else has.

It’s this lack of socialisation and connection that is both an Autistics strength and weakness. It’s a strength because they can work unhindered until the task has been completed but it’s a weakness as it takes a toll on there mental health. They are not aware of developments in the world or simply choose to ignore them thinking them unimportant or too depressing to contemplate.

In a world remade like Greta Thunberg would like as this one has been; let’s all take advantage of the time we have spent with our families and away from society to make our environment a friendlier place based on love, togetherness and peace. Let’s not just hope but work towards making the old world of corruption, deceit, lies, money and exploitation of both environment and people languish in the past as it should.

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The Current War

This is a movie starring Benedict Cumberbatch (yes him of the completely unpronounceable and unspellable name).

In this movie it seeks to understand the reasons behind the battle that took place between Edison’s Direct Current and Tesla’s/Westinghouse’s Alternative Current. Or as I explained to my husband, how the band AC/DC came to be;)

Ben plays Edison who we all know won the battle of who could light up America first. It was the first of the alternating technology battles (Betamax/VHS etc) that proved its not the best that wins but the one that is promoted the most and therefore more popular.

Social skills win over talent as people are much more willing to invest in a person who is like them selling them a dream rather than an engineer who can actually produce that idea. This is why Tesla loses out but it’s far more complex than that.

Of course in between the 2 remaining guys Westinghouse and Edison; they start to play dirty. They use underhand tactics to undermine the others reputation and products. Speed and efficiency are good but money is king in business. The Serbian immigrant is taken advantage of because all he has is his mind when he has sold his patents. As he is unable to communicate his ideas in a way that others understand they belittle him.

Watching a movie like this on a plane doesn’t do it justice. I couldn’t read the historical facts which are presented at the beginning and the end of the movie to separate the facts from the dramatization.

I definitely need to watch this again as the sound quality through the headphones was quite poor and in a movie that isn’t action based, you need to be able to hear the dialogue. I’m sorry I can’t give a very articulate review but I was only able to get the gist of the film.

Best wishes

Angela

The Wonders of the Universe by Brian Cox

This is a 4 part series on BBC 4 where he uses information gained from previous series of his like The Planets, The Wonders of Life or Forces of Nature, to explore in ever increasing detail how and when our world came to be formed.

The first part Destiny talks about how entropy was discovered by accident using the 2nd law of thermodynamics. This is a given for those that like trains, maths or physics which is usually the same people but it explains how time travels in one direction only and therefore we can see the difference between the past and the future. Cause and effect means you can define your place in time by looking at the state of decay of your surroundings. The Arrow of Time indicates the passage of time which we are all subject to even the stars although their timescale is much, much greater than our own.

Part 2 is about Stardust. Here he analyses the fact that everything in the universe is made of the same 92 elements. We can discover that we are in fact the same as stars by looking at the reactions of those chemical compounds. It turns out that to create all of the elements necessary for life stars have to die. The bigger the star, the more elements are created due to the energy given off from the heat that is created from its destruction.

The 3rd part deals with gravity and is entitled Falling (No Alicia Keys here;)) Falling as it turns out is an essential way to explain how gravity works using Einstein’s theory of relativity as our guide. Newton’s laws of physics can only take us so far and in fact they are not sufficient to explain things like the odd elliptical orbit of Mercury. When talking about gravity you have to mention black holes from which nothing not even light can escape.

Part 4 is on Messengers. This is about the different forms light can take from straight forward white sunlight to a rainbow to infra red and even radio waves. Heat itself is just another form of light only on a different wavelength. Here he talks about the age of the universe and how while it was relatively easy to break the sound barrier it was much more difficult to break the speed of light. For much of history even didn’t even know that light had a speed until it was discovered that the speed of the orbit of Io one of Jupiter’s moon seemed to differ depending on what time of year it was. The orbit in fact never changed just our position in relation to it. As we got further away light took longer to reach us therefore we thought it was changing rather than ourselves. The speed of light is now what is termed a light year and this is used to measure how far away distant stellar objects are.

To compare methods I also watched a program on the Discovery Science channel done by Stephen Hawking about whether “God did create the universe or not.”

It is his belief that a divine creator could not possibly have had time to create anything because of the quantum laws of physics. This is how the universe could be created out of nothing utilising Einstein’s theory of relativity – E = MC2. As time didn’t exist before matter/energy and space was created by the Big Bang; nobody else did either.

Best wishes

Angela

Forces of Nature with Brian Cox

This is a four part show on BBC 4 showcasing what he has learnt about the natural world through his studies in physics. The fourth part which I was watching today was about colours role in terms of sunlight interacting with water to create moon bows and the famous Northern Lights. He also explains those childhood favourites of why the sky is blue, plants are green and things underwater appear different colours.

I was also thinking about how the forces of nature have ruled my life so far in terms of hormones. It’s astonishing how much they control your life and you don’t really get much of a say in it. The sex drive is one of our most basic urges and it’s so strong it’s phenomenal. What’s equally impressive is when it’s not there because it hasn’t been awakened or it’s been dulled by medication. I’ve experienced both for myself and in my husband due to his leukaemia. It’s been a wild ride so far but it’s going to continue as hormones are essential to life. I hope I’m better prepared now that I know I have little to no control over things like that happening yet you can control your desire. You can turn it on and off but it doesn’t work like a tap, more like a central heating system I find as it’s gradual.

Our Mathematical Universe by Max Tegmark

I bought this book in October 2018 and I have picked it up several times reading bits and pieces digesting the content. This is not a book you undertake lightly for though it is written well; it’s content is revolutionary as it’s pushing at the boundaries of what we currently understand about quantum physics. I still haven’t got more than a third of the way through it as it takes complete concentration and focus which I rarely have available to me. It’s only due to storm Ciara that today I have started it once more.

I have found though that I keep coming back to this topic. When I’m bored and don’t know what to draw; I draw a rainbow, the universe, a sunset or the night sky. I have taken more photos of sunsets around the world than I can count! I’m fascinated with astronomy as I’m always watching Brian Cox. There has to be something in this for though I have explored many, many avenues; This one remains relatively untouched because of the brain power it takes to comprehend it.

I also find that only when I have covered all of the bases and I’m in a really deep meditative like state do I start to appreciate the complexities that are inherent in physics. It usually starts with boredom as I’m unsure what to do next and ends up with some amazing revelations about my self, my place and the world around me. Tapping into the strength of our minds is where our creativity comes from and our best ideas whatever they may be. Walking is good here as espoused by many a scientist who had there breakthroughs then, having a bath like Archimedes with his famous Eureka statement or the more unusual like Einstein working as a patent clerk.

Whatever it is that you do, find some time for yourself as you will be much happier once you have discovered that latent content locked within the fortress that is your brain. You have everything that you need to progress in life already. You just have to find out how to use it to benefit humankind.

The Mayan anthropology museum

This is a museum about the visual word. It demonstrates that the Mayan way of communication is completely different to anything else in the world. There are 31 different dialects and it shows in chart form how and where they evolved. It also demonstrates how the sound has changed over time.

The Mayan language started off being written in hieroglyphic form but with a completely different set of symbols to Egyptian. However when the Spanish invaded this was banned. So all Mayan practices had to conducted in secret or with the Latin language. As a result of this it meant that the ability to read and write was mostly lost until recently. The museum charts the work of anthropologists, enthographers and linguists from around the world but particularly Dresden, Madrid, and St Petersburg in there battle to understand this mysterious code. It was cracked but it took until the 1950s for this to happen. The Mayan language is now written universally in Latin and the hieroglyphs are left as part of there cultural heritage.

The reasoning for this is that the mayans used a vigesimal system which meant that they counted in 20s. This is quite a feat but remember there was no electricity in those days so no internet, television, radio, phones, computers to distract them.

For other number systems see here Alternative number systems.

The Mayan mathematical system was unique using dots and dashes to add all numbers together. They invented zero long before the Arabic zero. The Romans with their numerals never had the concept of zero. The Mayan knowledge of mathematics, physics and astronomy was comparable to the Ancient Greeks.

The Mayan calendar system was also unique in that it had 18 months of 20 days and 1 month of 5 days to create 365 days. The extra days were celebratory. They each had there own name and these were only repeated every 52 years. The date is written in 5 parts. The first 3 in numerals then you get words to represent where you are in that particular cycle.

The Mayan calendar system is similar to the Aztec calendar system so you can get easily confused as they are equally big numbers that seems rather abstract at once glance. You have to have a systematic and mathematical mind to grasp it. A bit like the old system of pounds, shillings and pence was once commonplace but now seems so awkward and obsolete.

There isn’t much in the museum itself anymore as it’s been open for 60 years now. It’s been moved to a new location further north but what is left is still intriguing. The artefacts themselves, the stories and the knowledge contained within. By the way this is in Spanish but you can get an English book if you left them hold your ID for the duration of your stay. It takes about a hour to look at it all.

Best wishes

Angela

Pavlos Santorinis

Pavlos Santorinis

https://greatestgreeks.wordpress.com/2019/05/15/pavlos-santorinis/
— Read on greatestgreeks.wordpress.com/2019/05/15/pavlos-santorinis/

This man has achieved so much that his work deserves to be promoted more.

He is the first part of my Famous Greeks series.

Other series include Greek poets, authors, Musicians, Rural villages in Lefkás and Foreigners who have become interested and or benefited Greece in some ways. All the links can be found here Series links.

Best wishes

Angela

A rest from cerebral matters

Today I wasn’t sure what to do so I got creative and made some fairies. I also looked up the Greek for the phrases that I wrote. By the way the word Eirini while meaning peace is also a girls name.

You can also see a book I’m reading, Max Tegmark’s Our Mathematical Universe, My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality. So you see that I can’t always be intellectual. Sometimes I need a break to be a little more childish.

Momentum

This is the energy that is gained when you have started a project and you really feel like your understanding your audience now. It gives you that impetus to continue making more work and allows you to overcome minor obstacles that occur in your path. Depending on how much speed you have acquired, the force that is present will propel you to greater things or it will left you languishing in the doldrums if sufficient friction is encountered.

Momentum can also be considered motivation if you don’t like the physics analogy that I was using. Sometimes looking at things from a different perspective is all that is required to create innovation or to breathe new life into an old idea.

Whatever terminology you like, find your specific angle and pursuit it with all your strength. You will find that you have a lot less resistance from yourself if you work with what you are good at regardless of profitability. The inertia that has previously been holding you back will disappear and the acceleration towards your goal will be phenomenal. The velocity that is unleashed when you know your purpose is unlike anything you will have seen before.

Just know that you may have to conduct many experiments before finding out the correct materials to use but once you have it figured out, the mathematics of it all will seem like child’s play. You will perhaps also wonder how you could have gone on for so long without knowing what appears to be so obvious now.