L'Chaim

 

To Life

May all your futures be pleasant ones
Not like our present ones
Drink, l'chaim, to life
To life, l'chaim
L'chaim, l'chaim, to life
It takes a wedding to make us say
Let's live another day
Drink, l'chaim, to life

Life appears to be reality plus imagination.

Euler’s Formula is e^ix=cos(x)+sin(x)i.  But this is true only on a Euclidean flat surface.

It is not true on a hyperbolic surface. On a  hyperbolic surface, Euler’s Formula is true when x=0, but it is not true when x=π.  Euler’s  Formula is true because it is the transformation of a complex number in polar coordinates to a complex number in Cartesian, rectangular, coordinates, when the real radius, r, is equal to 1. However coordinate transformation requires the use of a triangle.   A triangle behaves differently on flat and hyperbolic surfaces.  If that coordinate transformation is of a complex number with both a real and an imaginary axis, then it is re^ix=rcos(x)+rsin(x)i.  It is true that x=tan^‑1(rsin(x)/rcos(x)) on all surfaces.  However r²=(rcos(x))²+(rsin(x))² only is r=√((rcos(x))²+v(rsin(x))²) on a flat space.  On hyperbolic surfaces, if x=0, then this also appears to be correct, but for x=π, if the coefficient of the imaginary axis is not ignored, then this leads to r=cosh^‑1(cosh(rcos(x))*cosh(rsin(x))),  and for x=π, it leads to r=-r.  This is only true if the coefficient of the real axis, the radius, is always equal to 0.  Euler’s Formula works because of the trigonometric identity cos²+sin²=1.  However the hyperbolic trigonometric identity is cosh²‑sinh²=1.  On a hyperbolic surface, it is proposed that Euler’s formula should be restated as e^ix=cosh(x)-isinh(x).  In this case, you can take advantage of the fact that cosh(x) is symmetric about the zero axis, i.e. cosh(x)=cosh(-x), while in flat space it is sin(x) that is symmetric, i.e. sin(x)=sin(-x).  With the restatement of Euler’s Formula, r=ln(0±sinh(cosh(x))), and for x=π, r can be any value and is not limited to only zero.

So not just for zero, but for non-zero values of the radius of reality, if we live on a hyperbolic surface, life may be -r+0*i.  It has a coefficient of zero for imagination, but it is imagination nonetheless.

I Don't Know

 

Maybe

Maybe they're strict
As straight as a line
Don't really care
As long as they're mine
So maybe now this prayer's
The last one of its kind
Won't you please come get your "baby"
Won't you please come get your "baby"
Maybe

Yes or no can’t be the only answers. Sometimes the right answer is maybe.

Yes or no; true or false questions should not be allowed. Otherwise this can lead to “Have you stopped beating your wife?” questions. If you answer yes, you seem to be admitting that once beat your wife but have now stopped. If you answer no you seem to be admitting that you still beat your wife. But if you have never beat your wife, neither answer is correct. That is why I don’t know; it depends; it’s complicated; it’s not that simple; tentatively; maybe; or some third choice has to be offered along with yes  and no for the answer to have any meaning.

John F Kennedy said that “ Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer but the right answer.”  He understood that the right answer, might be a third choice. Harry Truman asked for one-handed economists because he was tired of economists who appeared to have three hands: on the one-hand; on the other hand; on the third hand. A simple yes or no  answer might be what you want to hear from your experts, but it may NOT be the correct answer. On the Car Talk radio show, the new puzzler was in the third half of the show. Tom and Ray Magliozzi, Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, were only trying to be funny but they spoke a great truth. The answer may be in the third half of the show.

Three

 

The Power of Love

You don't need money, don't take fame
Don't need no credit card to ride this train
It's strong and it's sudden and it's cruel sometimes
But it might just save your life
That's the power of love
That's the power of love

But what about the power of three.

I have posted previously about the power of three, a trinity. Some additional points:

·    Only the first three numerals have special suffixes, 1^st, 2^nd , and 3^rd , while all other ordinal numbers that are not numbers times powers of 10 plus those numbers, e.g., not 21^st, 201^st, 2001^st, etc. all share the same suffix, 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, 7^th, 8^th, 9^th, 10^th.

·     There are three fates, three Norns, three witches in Macbeth, three bears, three musketeers, etc.

·     In the TV series Charmed, the women stars wield the Power of Three.

·        Pro and con opinions are not very insightful. Add a third opinion and it can become very profound.

·    Toastermasters trains it speakers to offer three facts in every speech, claiming that the human brain responds best to three facts

·     The three basic laws of Alegra, can all be defined with only three variables: 

Commutative, a+b=c=b+a;

Associative, a+(b+c)=(a+b)+c;

Distributive, a*(b+c)=a*c+b*c

·     In game theory, a fair game must have at least three players. In two-player games with rules, the rules are by definition the third player.

·     Most plays, stories, etc., consist of three acts: a beginning, a middle and an ending.

·     A shape with three sides, a triangle, is always stable. A shape with less than three sides is not stable. A shape with more than three sides may not be stable.

·     A sentence has three basic parts: a subject, an object, and a verb.

·     An economic transaction requires three things: a seller, a buyer, and something to be exchanged.

·    There are three dimensions : space, time and imagination.  Space can be further divided into three parts: x, length; y, width; and z, height.  Time can be further divided into three parts: past, present, and future.Imagiantion can also be divided tinto three parts, postive day dreams, negativve nightmares and neutral reality.

Choice VII

 

I’m a Man

If I had my choice of matter,
I'd would rather be with cats
All engrossed in mental chatter
Showing where your mind is at

If you believe in one God, then you believe in Choice.

Zoroastrianism believes in two competing absolutes, Good and Evil, that are constantly at war. It sounds an awful like today’s Hellfire and Brimstone evangelists.

The First of the Ten Commandment is that God is an absolute and is there is only one absolute. This means that Evil is NEVER equal to Good if God is Good. This is not only theological it is also mathematical. If there is an absolute, ∞, AND a complete opposite of that absolute, -∞, its zero is a relative zero between these two absolutes, (∞+-∞)/2=0. But if there is one absolute, then the multiplicative inverse of that absolute, 1/∞, is an absolute zero. That there is a difference between an absolute zero and a relative zero can be seen by setting these two zeros equal to each other. You end up with the absurdity that ∞²-∞²=2.

If there is only one God, then Evil can never be an equal to that absolute/God. To accept a relative zero, is to accept that there are at least two absolutes. If there is only one absolute, the choice is between that absolute and no absolute, not between Good and Evil, i.e., competing absolutes. If someone is telling you that the choice is between Good and Evil, then they are also telling you that they believe that there are at least two absolutes. And if there is only one absolute there must be one choice, that absolute or not that absolute. If someone is denying you that choice, then they are denying the existence of that absolute.

Certainty III

 

The Hello Song (the theme song to Animaniacs) 

There's a word in every language
A word that you should know
A word that means you're friendly
A word used high and low.
Though the way to say it varies
Most everywhere you go
Its meaning never changes
And that word is Hello 

Variance is just saying Hello 

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose 

By any other name would smell as sweet; 

Smart guy that William Shakespeare. He saw the problem that humans infer things because of a name. Take the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle for instance. It could just as easily be called the Heisenberg Variance Principle, that for a particle at a location, x, the speed, δx, associated with that particle at that location is defined by the location and the standard deviation at that location. But because it is called the Uncertainty Principle, and God is Certain, it is assumed that God has No Variance, is Unvariant. 

Mathematically this is Determinism, 0 ± 0, versus Randomness, x ± σ. In trying to be God-like, humans assign a location of 0 and a Standard Deviation, σ, where variance is σ², of 0 to all things. However humans are not God, x<>0, and the correct equations should be 0 ± σ for God versus x<>0, x ± σ for everything else. In other words, we should try to  discover God’s variance and make that our own variance for all of our locations, if we want to be God-like.

The Middle

 

Stuck in the Middle

Clowns to the left of me
Jokers to the right
Here I am
Stuck in the middle with you.

But the middle is where you want to be.

The eternal debate always seems to be between the right vs left, whether that is monarchists vs. lower case r republicans; capitalists vs. communists; conservatives vs. liberals; libertarians vs. progressives; red vs. blue; etc. One side are User Optimalistsm, UO. The other side are System Optimalists, SO. But humans are individual users (UO) that form a society (SO). No side should win, or we have no society, and not thus no society to protect individuals from each other.

Mathematics/game theory provides the guidance that when individuals form a system they seek a Nash Equilibrium. Some users will achieve less than their own User Optimal, but all members of the System will be at Equilibrium,  will achieve the same value.

While this may sound like an unfamiliar concept, you probably have experienced it if ever you have driven in a lane drop in traffic, due to construction, work zones, accidents, etc. The System Optimal solution is for the lane which continues to move at capacity and for traffic to continue to operate in the lane that is being dropped for as long as possible until there is a safe gap to merge into the continuing lane. This is called a rolling merge. In fact few travelers have ever experienced a rolling merge. This is because an individual vehicle can always continue in the lane which is being dropped and then force its way to the head of the still moving lanes, because “don’t you know who they are.”  To prevent last-second lane jumpers, most other vehicles  move into the continuing lane at first notice. Also some vehicles will block the lane being dropped to block any attempts at lane jumping. This is neither a User Optimal free-for-all nor a System Optimal rolling merge, but somewhere in-between where individual Users function as if they were a System.

It is neither winner takes it all, nor everyone wins, but the team wins because some team members are willing to take one for the team. Neither extreme wins, but the middle wins.

Batman

 

I Am the Walrus

I am the egg man
They are the egg men
I am the walrus
Goo goo g'joob

I am the Batman, goo goo g’job.

I got excited when the National Renewable Energy Lab featured a story about the Gotham Knight. https://www.nrel.gov/news/features/2024/unleashing-the-power-batman-project-revolutionizes-battery-manufacturing.html. I should have realized that the project named Batman was short for Battery Manufacturing, and not the Gotham  Knight . Before that realization, my question was which Gotham Knight, the one before the Reagan presidency when Batman merely captured crooks for the Gotham  City Police Department OR the Batman after that time where his opponents were insane (at least according to his  morality) and were confined to Arham Asylum. It is the former Batman that was nearly cancelled, not current popular one. But there is another humbler meaning for batman that I would like to suggest is also more in keeping with the pre-1980s Batman.

That is an orderly to an officer in the British Army. It is derived not from the creature of the night, but from the term bat, the French word for a pack carried into battle. A batman managed an officer’s bat. In which case Alfred the butler is the batman to the current Batman.

A famous batman is Mervyn Bunter in Dorothy Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. Bunter was Lord Peter’s batman during World War I and remained with him after the war to manage his affairs. Despite being only his valet, Bunter is Lord Peter’s friend. Lord Peter admires Bunter’s efficiency and competence in virtually every sphere, and trusts him with his life. We all need a batman like that. I hope that the National Renewable Lab’s project has that batman in mind, and not the current Batman who is all about imposing his point of view by dominance.

Consistency

 

The Life I Lead

I run my home precisely on schedule
At 6:01, I march through my door
My slippers, sherry, and pipe are due at 6:02
Consistent is the life I lead! 

Be consistent. 

When faced with a road with too many cars for the capacity of that road, the expectation is thar the government which operates the road will excpnd the capacity of that road.  The expectation is not to eliminate some of the cars around me. Why they when faced with an immigration system where there are too many immigrants for the processing system is the response that government should eliminate immigrants, not increase its ability to process immigrants? To be consistent why is the correct response increasing supply in one case and decreasing demand in the other case. Shouldn’t it be the same response in both cases?

But understand when there is an attempt at a joke. I remember a public meeting when I was asked a question about how to deal with traffic congestion. I factiously tried to emulate Swift’s Immodest Proposal by saying that people should shoot the tires of vehicles that they did not recognize. I remember then being asked without any sense of irony where would one get ammunition for one's gun and could one get exemptions from our state’s gun laws. I learned to be consistent in my humor too!

Distribution of Wealth III

 

Adventures of Robin Hood Theme

Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
Riding through the glen,
Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
With his band of men,
Feared by the bad, loved by the good,
Robin Hood! Robin Hood! Robin Hood!

Where is Robin Hood when you need him?

According to the Global Wealth Databook published by USB, the world has become wealthier but more inequitable in the distribution of that wealth. In 2000, that databook reported that the adult population of the 164 markets, mostly countries, was 3.8 billion and the wealth of those markets was 118 Trillion of US Dollars. In 2022, the most recent year reported, the adult population increased to 5.1 billion. a growth of 42 percent, but the wealth had increased to 450 trillion of US Dollars. Even adjusting for inflation, this is equivalent to $256 trillion in 2000 US Dollars, a growth of 117 percent.

The distribution of that wealth also became less equitable. The ratio of the mean to median wealth per adult is a good indication of the equitable distribution in each market. That index has been weighted by the size of the population of each market. On that basis the weighted Equity Index (the ratio of the mean to the median, weighted by the population for each market in 2000 is as shown below.

It changed to that shown below in 2022.

While the extremes in the smaller markets of Bahrain, Bahamas and Brunei dropped in the intervening years,  the total inequity increased, and the variance in in the distribution of wealth also has increased. The Equity Index in the United States changed from 4.7 in 2000 to 5.1 in 2022. This ratio of the mean to the median is NOT changed by restating in inflation adjusted dollars. It appears that as total wealth increased, this has been accompanied primarily by an increase in the variance of the distribution of that wealth.

Distribution of Wealth II

God Bless the Child

Money, you've got lots of friends
They're crowding around the door
When you're gone and spending ends
They don't come no more
Rich relations give crusts of bread and such
You can help yourself, but don't take too much

Mama may have, papa may have 
But God bless the child that's got his own, that's got his own
God bless the child, the child that's got his own 

How much wealth is enough to be your own? 

God bless the Swiss. I had the feared that the Global Wealth Databook published annually by Credit Suisse would be discontinued after Credit Suisse was taken over by UBS. In fact UBS has published the 2023 book. And this Databook has wealth information by country by year from 2000 to 2022. Thus it is possible to not only see how wealth is distributed among the population of a market, but it is also possible to see how this distribution has changed over time. For 2022, the book reports mean, median and total wealth and adult populations for 164 markets which are primarily countries ( Hong Kong SAR,  and Taiwan are reported as separate markets from Mainland China, despite China’s’ territorial claims; some markets are not reported because there is no data, e.g., Sudan, South Sudan, etc.). This means that at least for this year it is still possible to examine how wealth is distributed in most markets.

“Sadly” the United States, based on the ratio of the mean to the median wealth, has lost ground as the market/country with the most inequitable distribution of wealth in the world. https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2022/04/distribution-of-wealth.html   

While Bahrain and the Bahamas are still the most inequitable counties, again they are very small markets. But the United States has lost ground to other small markets such Lesotho, Brunei, Suriname and even to the large market of Brazil. If the mean to median is weighted by the share of population, the United States has only the third most inequitable distribution of wealth after India and China. But this ranking is almost entirely because of the size of India and China’s populations. The Top 10 Most Inequitable Markets ranked by weighted inequality of wealth (mean divided by median) are

Market	Share of Adults	Share of Wealth	Weighted Mean /Median Wealth
India	18.1%	3.4%	0.80
Mainland China	21.7%	18.8%	0.60
United States	4.9%	31.1%	0.25
Brazil	3.1%	1.0%	0.16
Indonesia	3.6%	0.7%	0.13
Russia	2.2%	1.0%	0.10
Nigeria	2.0%	0.2%	0.09
Pakistan	2.5%	0.2%	0.06
Philippines	1.4%	0.2%	0.06
Bangladesh	2.1%	0.2%	0.05

where the mean wealth per adult that is closest to the median wealth per population remains Iceland. But this is not surprising in a country with arguably the oldest democratic body (the Althing)  and where almost everyone is related to everyone else on the island.

Brains?

 

If I Only Had A Brain

I could while away the hours
Conferrin' with the flowers,
Consulting with the rain;
And my head I'd be a scratchin'
While my thoughts are busy hatchin'
If I only had a brain.

Does the Scarecrow already have a brain?

In the movie The Wizard of Oz, the Scarecrow demonstrates that he has a brain, but he is given a diploma to prove that he has a brain.

"Oh No, Scarecrow!  Math from the Wizard of Oz     by JW Gaberdiel

At the end of The Wizard of Oz, the Scarecrow receives a diploma and then immediately says,

“The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUCZXn9RZ9s

This is unfortunate.  It sounds a lot like the Pythagorean Theorem: 

“The sum of the squares of the legs of a right triangle is equal to the square of the hypotenuse.”

However, Scarecrow’s version is wildly and devastatingly different from Pythagoras’ version. "

https://www.metro-arts.org/ourpages/auto/2015/5/14/58561904/Scarecrows%20Math%20from%20The%20Wizard%20of%20Oz.pdf

Actually neither is correct.  Gaberdiel assumes that the Scarecrow was talking about a triangle on a Euclidean, flat, surface.  What the Scarecrow should  be saying if the surface is hyperbolic is

 “The product of the hyperbolic cosines of the legs of a right triangle is equal to the hyperbolic cosine of the remaining side."

The squares, square roots, and the Pythagoras’ Theorem for right triangles only apply on Euclidean, flat, surfaces.  It is true because on a flat surface, cos(c)=cos(a)*cos(b), where a, b, and c are the sides of a right triangle,  and this is equivalent to Pythagoras Theorem.  On a spherical surface, such as the Earth, the formula is cos(c/R)=cos(a/R)*cos(b/R) where R is the Radius of the special surface.  When a, b, and c are very small compared to R , i.e. as R goes to infinity, the limt is cos(c)=cos(a)* cos(b), which is Pythagoras’ Theorem.  But as any airplane pilot will confirm, a Great Circle Distance is not solved using Pythagoras’ Theorem.  If the surface is hyperbolic, not spherical, then Pythagoras’ Theorem is also not correct.  The correct formula is cosh(c)=cosh(a)cosh(b). The Scarecrow may have been given a diploma, but to be correct he also needed to get an imagination, the component that makes a function, and the surface it is on, hyperbolic.

Warehouses

 

A Horse In Striped Pajamas

Look there daddy, do you see?
There's a horse in striped pajamas
No, that's not what it is at all
That's an animal people call a zebra
I see, but it still looks like a
Horse in striped pajamas to me

Is a warehouse store like Costco a warehouse or a store?

This sounds like a silly question, but it is not.  If you are looking at that warehouse store from the perspective of a user, then whether it is a warehouse, or a store, is immaterial to you.  You are a customer of that warehouse store, not a competitor. If you are looking at that warehouse store from the perspective of a producer then that warehouse store has no intention of using the goods that it purchases from you. They are only a customer, not a competitor.  From the perspective of a user they are a seller, and from perspective of a receiver, they are a re-seller. 

This makes a difference in economics and other modeling.  Are you calling that warehouse store a  warehouse industry, whose function is to store goods until the user needs them, or are you calling them  a wholesaler, whose function is to compete with other retail stores.   I can get it for you wholesale.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics which uses the North American Industrial Classification System classifies them as wholesalers, not as warehouses.  So you might call them a warehouse, but someone might call them wholesalers.  They are both, if you don’t expect them to behave like a horse that is getting ready to sleep, then it is just a name, not the function. And a rose by any other name would smell as sweet!

Both Sides Now

 

Ten Thousand Voices

Ten thousand kisses
Ten thousand tears
Ten thousand wishes
Ten thousand years

Ten thousand years sounds like a long time.

In Europe, they  think that 100 miles is a long distance and 100 years is a short time.  In the US, we think that  100 miles is a short distance and 100 years is a long time.  But Europeans are also very intolerant of people not in their group, the Irish and the British for example, or the Poles and the Russians.   I am the grandchild of immigrants from Europe.  They left Europe to get away from intolerance.  So pick your poison, the group that lives a long time but thinks people from far away are bad, or the individual who lives a very short time and thinks people from far away are not so bad.  

 IMHO the problem today is that people like MTG, Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, etc., think only about the short term AND that people from far away are bad.  The worst of both worlds. I would prefer to think about the long term AND that people from far away are good.

Cycles

 

The Circle of Life

It's the circle of life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
'Til we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the circle
The circle of life

Life isn’t a straight line up. Life isn’t a straight line down. Life is a circle, a cycle.

Humans tend to view things as a straight line. When things are getting worse, think they will get even worse, which also means that things were better in the past, MAGA. If things are going good, we think they will continue to be that way forever,

The truth is that life is a cycle. You just have to not be hasty, and allow the cycle to complete itself. Our persective can change how we view thingss.  To a toddler, next Christmas seems like forever.   A senior citizen might say instead, is it Christmas again already? The fact is, it is always a year between Chistmases.  It did not take less time, your perspective just changed.  

If the cycle is very long you might miss the fact that it is a cycle.  If the cycle is very short, it might look like there is no cycle, that things just happen. But if there is life, you can be sure the cycle is there. Even if the cycle is in your imagaination, dreams.

Dumb and Dumber?

 

Epistle to Dippy

Rebelling against society,
Such a tiny speculating whether to be a hip or
Skip along quite merrily.
Through all levels you've been changing
Elevator in the brain hotel
Broken down a-just as well-a
Looking through crystal spectacles,
Ah, I can see I had your fun.
dumb dumb dumb, dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb

So Dippy, are you dumb, or dumb like a fox?

The most convincing lies sound true. Such as “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”  You can use simple math to prove this is not true. Let “=” be friendship and “<>” be enmity. Let a be you, b be your enemy, and c be the enemy of your enemy. The enemy of my enemy is his enemy is true, b<>c. My enemy is my enemy, is true, a <>b. But the enemy of my enemy is my friend, a=c, is not true. The enemy of your enemy might be your friend a=c, but they could also be your enemy a<>c.

Similarly tax brackets, which are MARGINAL tax rates are not EFFECTIVE tax rates. A 99% marginal tax rate is not a 99% effective tax rate, any more than acceleration is speed. Prior to Reaganomics in 1979, the highest tax bracket was 70% but the effective tax rate was 37%.  In 1981 after the Reagan tax cuts, the highest marginal tax rate was 50% and the highest effective tax rate was 32%. In 2023, after the most recent Job and Tax Cuts Act, the highest marginal tax rate was reduced to 37% and the effective tax rate was 29%. You can have policy debates on what the marginal tax rate or the effective tax rate effective rate should be, but you should not confuse the two. Was this an example of being dumb, or being dumb like a fox?

A Flat tax rate on income, where the marginal tax rate is always equal to the effective tax rate of income, not households, is implictly assuming that the variance of income in every household is zero, which means that every household has the same income. Sounds rather communistic that way, doesn’t it?

It is true that an absolute has a mean/median/mode which is abosute zero, but this does not mean that an absolute has no variance, σ². In this case determinism is really 0 ± σ and randomness is (x<∞) ± σ. It is NOT determinism is 0 ± 0 and randomness is x ± σ. Making your mean/median/mode equal to zero and your variance zero does not make you an absolute. It only makes the look like you are pretending to be an absolute. The only question is did you unintentionally claim to be an absolute, in which case you could be corrected, or did you intentionally lie about being an absolute and can not be corrected. You can be shown to be lying, but you might still lie.