Hardy on New Year's Eve

Here is Hardy, in quizzical mood, disguising bleak perceptions of our human world as whimsy.

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"I have finished another year," said God,
"In grey, green, white, and brown;
I have strewn the leaf upon the sod,
Sealed up the worm within the clod,
And let the last sun down."

"And what's the good of it?" I said.
"What reasons made you call
From formless void this earth we tread,
When nine-and-ninety can be read
Why nought should be at all?

"Yea, Sire; why shaped you us, 'who in
This tabernacle groan' -
If ever a joy be found herein,
Such joy no man had wished to win
If he had never known!"

Then he: "My labours - logicless -
You may explain, not I:
Sense-sealed I have wrought, without a guess
That I evolved a Consciousness
To ask for reasons why.

"Strange that ephemeral creatures who
By my own ordering are,
Should see the shortness of my view,
Use ethic tests I never knew,
Or made provision for!"

He sank to raptness as of yore,
And opening New Year's Day
Wove it by rote as theretofore,
And went on working evermore
In his unweeting way.

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Unweeting appears to be correct - I take it to be a poetic version of unwitting, needed in this form for reasons of stress and meter.

Is Human Activity Warming Our World?

Is human activity increasing the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere? Does an increased carbon dioxide content trap heat in the atmosphere?

A powerful prevailing opinion answers 'yes' to both these questions, and demands huge expenditure to reduce our carbon dioxide production, stressing urgency if global climate catastrophe is to be avoided.

This is the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming - AGW.

In Britain, Europe, Canada and (increasingly) America politicians are convinced by the prevailing opinion, so AGW is the issue dominating political, economic and social policies.

Contrary opinions are heard, but so far have failed to raise significant doubt in the minds of our rulers. Indeed doubters are often dismissed as ignorant, cranks, or worse, and dubbed 'deniers'.

A sound theory is established by analysis of data, and critics rebutted similarly. Attacks on the probity or sanity of critics must always arouse suspicion that their criticism cannot be answered by argument based on evidence.

So what evidence is there to support the theory of AGW?

There is useful summary of the various data sets available here. [The slider above the diagrams permits the time span to be adjusted.] The following facts are difficult to challenge.

1. Global temperatures increased steadily from 1960 to 2000. After 2000 temperatures stabilised.

Between 1880 and 1940 temperatures were reduced, with a minimum around 1912.

The total temperature increase between 1910 and 2000 was approximately 0.7 degrees. The increase during those 90 years was not regular: between 1940 and 1970 the net change was about zero.

2. Atmospheric carbon dioxide increased from 320 to 390 parts per million during the 50 year period 1959 to 2009. The upward trend shows some acceleration during this time.

The increase is about 30%, but is only 70 parts per million in the atmosphere. The contribution to atmospheric heat content is negligible, especially set beside the contribution of water, also a 'greenhouse gas', and much more abundant in the atmosphere.

I am sure that a statistical analysis would show an excellent correlation between global temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, but correlation is no proof of causation - and the naive belief that it is can cause serious errors. Thus in the twentieth century I would expect good correlation between global temperature and the number of muslims in Europe, and a good inverse correlation between atmospheric carbon dioxide and the number of whales in the oceans, but it would be absurd to suggest such correlations prove cause and effect.

The observed correlation of temperature and carbon dioxide is consistent with at least 4 hypotheses, as follows.

1. Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide increases global temperatures.

This hypothesis is basic to any attribution of global warming to human activity.

2. Increasing global temperatures increase atmospheric carbon dioxide.

This is the inverse of 1.

Warming oceans release carbon dioxide. Studies of polar ice cores give some support to this hypothesis. Over thousands of years warm periods show higher atmospheric carbon dioxide values than cool periods. There is also a hint that temperature changes lead carbon dioxide changes.

3. Global temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide are not linked directly, but each is affected by some third factor.

4. The correlation is a coincidence.

This seems unlikely.

The data do not permit a decision between these alternatives. Clever computer manipulations may add detail, but there is insufficient information to allow a firm conclusion.

Similarly computer modelling is prone to errors, including programmers' bias, ignorance of the relative importance of the many factors affecting climate, lack of data, and the critical impact of unpredictable items.

Correct predictions improve confidence in computer models. Prediction performance so far is, well, unimpressive.

Our climate has never been constant. Climate change is a fact of our environment. Human activity may now be sufficient to influence climate, but this remains a hypothesis. Doubt and scepticism are rational responses at our present level of knowledge and understanding.

I strongly support policies and engineering to reduce human pollution of the atmosphere, not least because such measures will demand more sanity in our economics. But I am not convinced that the AGW theory is correct. Certainly the case for huge expenditures and dramatic forced changes in human society cannot be justified on present evidence.

Our climate is driven by the sun. Solar energy output is not constant. Solar radiation and magnetic fields vary with the sunspot cycle. Solar maxima became exceptionally large during the second half of the twentieth century, in the period when data showed global warming.

We know from past data that periods of absent solar maxima are associated with global cooling. The current solar cycle, number 24, is currently running at least 2 years late, and solar activity continues to be well below the predicted values.

The number of days free of sunspots was much greater during the recent solar minimum than it was in the previous one.

We may be entering a period of reduced solar activity, after the intense activity in the past century. We may be at the beginning of a 'Maunder Gap' - another period free of sunspots. If that proves to be the case the problem will be global cooling, certainly sufficient to affect human life, maybe seriously.

But on this too, there is insufficient evidence to be sure. But I note that weather forecasting which includes solar data has proved more successful than the conventional techniques of our Meteorological Office.

Hardy on Christmas Eve

This is a favourite poem by Thomas Hardy, published the 24th. December 1915.

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.

"Now they are all on their knees,"

An elder said as we sat in a flock

By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where

They dwelt in their strawy pen.

Nor did it occur to one of us there

To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few believe

In these years! Yet, I feel,

If someone said on Christmas Eve

"Come; see the oxen kneel,

In the lonely barton by yonder combe

Our childhood used to know,"

I should go with him in the gloom,

Hoping it might be so.

My best wishes to all at Christmas, and may we all be granted health, peace and prosperity in 2011.

In particular may the abomination of war and the barbarism of terrorism be banished for ever from this good earth.

For Golden Girls

I have a new vocation: poet laureate to my grand-daughters.
So far only the two older girls have been honoured with limericks from Grandpa. No doubt the younger two will be warned what may come their way.

These are for Lizzie, 9 in January, reluctant to learn to read at first, now a voracious reader - a true bookworm. Just as her father was at that age.

"They said reading is hard, but it's easy",
Said a blue-eyed blonde bookworm called Lizzie;
"These books that I'm reading
Are all that I'm needing,
So don't interrupt me, I'm busy".

"I'm eight now" said Lizzie "that means
My long legs need serge bleu de Nimes;
Leave frilly pink dresses
For fairy princesses:
Tantara, kids, it's Lizzie blue-jeans".

And, in The Emperor chinese restaurant.

"I'm crackers for crackers" said Liza,
Prawn crackers, my top appetizer.
At an Emperor lunch
I crunch and I munch,
If the waitress brings more I'll surprise her."

For her younger sister, Catherine, who declared she was The Spotty Princess, so all around should wear spotty clothes.

Catherine Emma said "Grandpa, confess!
Your green tie has no spots like my dress.
You choose with more care
The clothes that you wear
When you visit the Spotty Princess."

And, for their mother Pam, an enthusiastic runner of marathons.

Top Mum Pam came home from her run,
Saying "O that was good, I had fun.
On the riverbank road
I raced Mr. Toad -
And would you believe it, I won!'

Having a doting grandpa / father-in-law has its disadvantages!

The Price of Experience

I have removed the text of this posting. I may repost this tragic story in a more appropriate future context.

Athos 7: The Greek Religion

Jesus, like Socrates, wrote nothing. His first language was Aramaic, in the Galilean dialect, as it was for his disciples.

But Greek is the first language of Christianity, not Aramaic. Greek in its 'koine' vernacular was spoken and understood widely through the eastern Mediterranean in Jesus' time, and he and his disciples may well have been familiar with it.

Still, it is unexpected to find the gospels are in Greek. The disciples are presented as working men, of uncertain literacy, not expected to be capable of writing fluent Greek: the Gospel and Revelation of John are especially remarkable. Greek was a common language, but Aramaic was widely spoken and written too. Why did the gospel writers choose not to record Jesus' teachings and life in his and their native language?

Maybe Jesus' message was reckoned too subversive to present in the language of the high priests and the scribes.

The choice of Greek permitted the fusion of Jewish messianic prophecy with Hellenic science and philosophy, to create the rich and vigorous hybrid of Christianity. Perhaps, too, it brought into the new religion the Greek love of debate; of meticulous analysis and discussion; of reasoned, eloquent argument: maybe, too, the Greek tendency to discord and fission.

Greek gave Christianity the advantage of perhaps the finest language for the creation and expression of precise, detailed thought. Classical Greek has complex grammar and syntax, permitting refined and subtle thinking, and a huge dictionary. Greek writers created an unequalled legacy of intellectual and artistic literature, an unparalleled tradition for those developing the new religion.

Greek is written using a detailed, complete alphabet. The reader knows how to say each word.

By contrast, the first and only language of Islam is Arabic. Compared to Greek, Arabic is simple and limited. For example, the Arabic verb has only two tenses, denoting incomplete and completed action: there is no formal future tense in Arabic. But the imperative is well developed.

Arabic is written from right to left, in normal use omitting short vowel signs; so pat, pet, pit, pot, put, would each be written pt.

Lucretius complains of the difficulty of presenting Greek thinking in Latin (1): translation into Arabic is more difficult still.

Many Greek texts were translated into Arabic in the Caliphate, but not into the Arabic of Mohammad. Hourani, in his History of the Arab Peoples, pages 75-76, describes how Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians translated Greek texts into Syriac (a language related to Aramaic) and then into Arabic. He tells how their Arab rulers knew little of 'the languages of thought', and 'the Arabic language had not yet acquired the capacity to express the concepts of science and philosophy in a precise way'.

In the second to fourth centuries after Mohammad translation was intensive, mostly by Christian scholars.

'An essential part of their work was to expand the resources of the Arabic language, its vocabulary and idiom, to make it an adequate medium for the whole intellectual life of the age.'

It isn't clear that they succeeded. Still today it is difficult to translate English texts precisely into Arabic. In 'Oman our students had to be fluent in English to read textbooks. Despite huge expenditure by Arab governments on education, there are few textbooks in Arabic - neither originals nor translations.

Arabic-English dictionaries are few.

Arabic is a male language: it suits the master, the didact and the demagogue.

Here is the Greek Lord's Prayer, the central text of Christianity, in English transliteration. Nouns are in bold, verbs are in italics; ē is long ee (eta), ō is long o (omega).

The Lord's Prayer has been translated into almost every language on earth. I can safely assume any reader is familiar with it.

Pater hēmōn ho en tois ouranois,

agiasthētō to onoma sou,

elthetō hē basileia sou,

genēthētō to thelēma sou,

hōs en ouranōi kai epi gēs.

Ton arton hēmōn ton epiousion dos hēmin sēmeron;

kai aphes hēmin ta opheilēmata hēmon,

hos kai hēmeis aphēkamen tois opheiletais hēmōn;

kai mē eisenegkēs hēmas eis peirasmon,

alla rusai hēmas apo tou ponērou.

There are 57 words in total, of these 8 are verbs, and 12 are nouns.

Here is the nearest equivalent from the Qur'an, the 'Opening Surah', the Surah al Fatihah, again transliterated to English. Again nouns are in bold, with some difficulty, since Arabic may not always distinguish noun and adjective. Verbs are again in italic.

This is chanted millions of times everyday, in Arabic only. Translation is not approved. Many muslims can recite this with little or no comprehension. In Muscat Aziz, a muslim from Kerala, told us he could recite most of the Qur'an, but understood little of it. "O no, it is not for me to say what it means, the mullah does that."

Bismillahi ar rahmani ar rahimi

In the name of God the compasionate one, the merciful;

al hamdu lillahi rabbi al alamina

praise to God, lord of the worlds,

ar rahmani ar rahimi

the compassionate one, the merciful;

maliki yawmi ad dini

king of the day of judgement;

iyyaka na'budu wa iyyaka nasta'inu

you we worship and your aid we seek;

ihdina as sirata al mustaqima

show us the right way;

sirata al ladina an'amta 'alayhim 'gayr al maqdubi 'alayhim wala ad dalina

the way of grace, not the way of those of your anger, nor of those who stray.

In 41 words, 17 are nouns and 3 are verbs.

This is primarily a dedication, a commitment. The last line is usually taken to mean the Jews, who suffer God's anger, and Christians, who have strayed from the truth. Note that judeophobia is visceral in Islam.

The muslim message is simple: fear God and obey Mohammad - a terrible fate awaits those who do not.

The muslim aspires to be Abd-al-Lah: slave of the God.

The Christian message is truly a prayer. We are each the child of a heavenly father. We must love God, and serve him in the love of one another.

The christian prays to God the Father; the muslim prostrates before God the Führer.

And the original Christianity is in the Orthodox.

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(1) Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, 1:136-140

Nec me animi fallit Graiorum obscura reperta

difficile inlustrare Latinibus versibus esse,

multa novis verbis praesertim cum sit agendum

propter egestatem linguae et rerum novitatem;

I know how hard it is, in Latin verse, to tell the deep discoveries of the Greeks,

Chiefly because our narrow speech must find the new terms needed to explain their originalities.

Dark Matters

Familiar forms of matter and energy comprise just 4% of the universe; the balance is Dark Energy [70%] and Dark Matter [26%]. This is the startling conclusion from two recent major research programmes: satellite measurements of minute spatial variations in the temperature of the source of cosmic background microwave radiation, and studies relating the red-shift in the spectra of supernovae to their distance.

What is Dark Matter, and what is Dark Energy? The short answer is that we don't know.

Dark Matter is the easier concept to consider. Previous analyses of motions of galaxies revealed that the gravitational forces involved were much greater than predicted from the estimated mass interacting in the galaxies. The simplest explanation is that galaxies contain much dark matter that is not detected directly by our instruments, although its effects can be seen and measured. So there is growing evidence that dark matter is an observable reality, with the prospect that its nature will be determined eventually.

Dark Energy is much more problematic.

It is invoked to explain a further important conclusion from these researches. The evidence suggests that the expansion rate of the universe reduced during the first 8 billion years after the big bang, but has been increasing during the subsequent 6 billion years. Dark energy is invoked as a sort of anti-gravity to explain this acceleration.

So dark energy is an unknown entity introduced to make cosmological equations conform to observations. In short, it is a 'fudge factor'.

'Fudge factors' always reduce confidence in the theory behind the equations: when a 'fudge factor' is 70% of the conclusion the theory must be in serious trouble.

The theory in question is general relativity. Einstein himself found it necessary to introduce a 'cosmological constant' to make his equations balance. Later he said this was his biggest mistake, but maybe he was in advance of his time on this issue too.

Relativity works very well on scales up to galactic. It is in the intergalactic, cosmological scale that difficulties arise. The problem may be that relativity has minor inaccuracies that matter only at the largest scales, in the same way as Newtonian gravitational theory works well for most planetary calculations, but proves inadequate at greater distances and greater gravitational fields.

When a theory is in trouble it is a good principle to consider the things that are generally assumed to be beyond question.

One assumption is that the mass of the universe is constant. Yet everywhere we look we see evidence of matter being converted to energy: particles with mass giving rise to mass-less photons of radiant energy. Such processes power the stars and cause stellar explosions. To be sure, the loss of mass is very small in relation to the energy released, but the universe is big, and the time scale enormous.

Nowhere have we seen evidence of the converse: matter being created from energy. To be fair, this would be more difficult to observe; but (naively perhaps) it does appear that the total mass of the universe is reducing, and the total gravity with it. This may be the factor ignored in current theory, which might - just might - make the hypothesis of dark energy unnecessary.

Further, if matter and mass are being destroyed, with no compensatory reverse processes, then the ratio E/M is increasing [where E is the total energy in the universe, and M the total mass]. Now mass and energy are related to the speed of light according to the Einstein equation, e=mc^2 ; or c=√(e/m). Could it be that the balance of energy and mass in the universe determines the speed of light? If so, it means the speed of light is increasing with E/M: the relation of time to the other dimensions of space is changing.

Increasing speed of light gives a new explanation of the red-shift of the spectra of distant radiation sources, and hints that the apparent expansion of the universe may be an optical illusion.

Is this absurd? I lack the skills and knowledge to examine these questions properly. I take comfort in the thought that it was the simpleton who spotted that the emperor was naked.

Cui Bono: For Whose Benefit?

So Irish citizens - men, women and children - are to be crucified on a cross of gold, to shore up the failing Euro.

These huge loans are not for Ireland's benefit.

Ireland needs export-driven industry, creating jobs, the means to repay debt, and to move back to a sustainable prosperity.

But Ireland is small country on the periphery of Europe; exporting is more expensive than in Germany. For this and other reasons the Euro is an over-valued currency in Ireland. A new Irish Punt would be valued much below the Euro.

Ireland cannot export successfully and remain in the eurozone. The Euro blocks Ireland's route to recovery.

Meanwhile German industry exports with increasing success. If Germany restored the Deutschmark it would be valued way above the exchange rate of the Euro. Like China, Germany has an undervalued currency. This has encouraged the development of the huge trade imbalances which caused the crisis.

Some are saying that the value to Germany of an undervalued currency exceeds the costs of loans to states crippled by the Euro, so Germany will fight to keep the Euro until this calculation reverses.

Unless the German Constitutional Court declares such Euro rescues are unlawful. I understand the court's judgement is expected in February.

In the meantime we should recognise reality: the European Union, and specifically the Eurozone, is the Deutsches Wirtschafts Reich - the German industrial empire.

Too Clever By Half

Being too clever can complicate diagnosis. Most often it is a problem for the able young doctor, not yet case-hardened, not yet clear that common things are common, and that an unusual presentation of a common disease is more likely than a rarity.

But over-clever errors can afflict us all, no matter how learned and experienced we may be.

This happened to me after nearly a half-century in practice.

Elwyn was 54 years old. He had a hill farm with a flock of sheep. He was tall, slim and fit, and a non-smoker.

So it was a surprise when he was sent to the hospital as a suspected myocardial infarction.

Soon after getting up that morning he had a sudden severe chest pain, which stopped him. He sat down, in pain, and feeling nausea. He felt his heart thumping and became short of breath. The pain subsided after several minutes but the palpitations and breathing difficulty continued.

He had no significant past medical history; and no heart disease in the family.

He had an electrocardiogram on arrival, which showed some anomalies, but not the changes of acute myocardial infarction.

On examination he looked grey, sweaty and ill. He was sitting up, visibly short of breath, and became distressed at any attempted to lie flat. From the foot of the bed I could see pulsation in his carotid arteries.

His pulses were increased and collapsing, at a rate of 100/minute, regular. Blood pressure was over 250 systolic, with no clear diastolic cut-off down to zero.

The immediate suspicion was that he had suffered some sort of acute failure of the aortic valve, so I was surprised to find a forceful apex beat in the right place - in the 5th. left interspace, in the mid-clavicular line. Leaking valves put a volume load on the heart, causing dilation.

The stethoscope revealed a loud diastolic murmur of aortic regurgitation, as expected.

But listening at the apex of the heart I heard a second, low-pitched, diastolic murmur. Austin Flint's name is associated with an apical mid-diastolic murmur, and this was my first thought. But listening further I hear an early diastolic snap, followed by a decrescendo murmur, increasing again before a loud first sound. These are the classical signs of mitral stenosis.

I demonstrated these signs to the house physician and two students, who agreed with me. Well, I suppose they would.

But it didn't make sense. A double valve lesion must mean a heart damaged by rheumatic fever, probably in child-hood, and long-standing valvular disease. But this man had no such history, and was in good health until a few hours before.

An associated mitral stenosis might explain the undisplaced apex beat.

I was perplexed. I called my cardiological colleague. By good fortune he was in the cardiac laboratory; bring down the patient for an echo-cardiogram.

I watched fascinated. The root of the aorta was dilated, and the valve stretched, the cusps not meeting. There was massive reflux of blood into the left ventricle during diastole. The left ventricular cavity was dilated.

The mitral valve was normal, but it could scarcely open in diastole before the flood of reflux had filled the cavity, pushing the mitral valve cusps back and together. The phonogram showed this was the cause of the opening snap I had heard. The diastolic murmur was functional: high left atrial pressure and atrial systole forcing blood through a closed valve into the full ventricle.

And the heart had not dilated because it was all so acute. Over the next few hours it would, with rapidly increasing left ventricular failure.

Elwyn needed emergency surgery. He was transferred to the cardiac surgeons in another hospital that afternoon, who operated that evening. They put in aortic arch and aortic valve prostheses.

The pathologist reported the resected aorta showed cystic medial necrosis, a recognised degenerative condition.

Elwyn did well, but I didn't see him again - he was followed up by the cardiologist. I heard later he decided the farm was too much for him.

As a young doctor studying for a higher examination I had spent many hours practising with the stethoscope. I had become - yes, I'll admit it - proud of my skill with that challenging instrument. On this occasion I had fallen.

Had I not been so clever when I listened I would have got the right diagnosis.