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Although I have written about this before, today I read an article that claimed Parallel Universes Exist – Study. Here are some quick excerpts:

Parallel universes really do exist, according to a mathematical discovery by Oxford scientists described by one expert as “one of the most important developments in the history of science”.

The parallel universe theory, first proposed in 1950 by the US physicist Hugh Everett, helps explain mysteries of quantum mechanics that have baffled scientists for decades, it is claimed.

In Everett’s “many worlds” universe, every time a new physical possibility is explored, the universe splits. Given a number of possible alternative outcomes, each one is played out – in its own universe.

A motorist who has a near miss, for instance, might feel relieved at his lucky escape. But in a parallel universe, another version of the same driver will have been killed. Yet another universe will see the motorist recover after treatment in hospital. The number of alternative scenarios is endless.

As I pointed out the last time I addressed this issue, the idea of a multiverse utterly destroys science. In fact, since the induction problem already occurs in a single universe, retreating to a multiverse will only compound the inductive problem. The multiverse, in other words, is even more damaging to science than Hume’s inductive problem.

Hume’s inductive problem tells us that just because we have always seen the sun rise each morning does not guarantee that it will rise tomorrow morning. But those who address Hume can at least retreat to the probability argument: given the multitude of times the sun has risen and the fact that it has never not risen, there is no reason to doubt the sun will rise.

The multiverse theory, however, does not have the ability to fall back to probability, because the fact of the matter is that there are no odds left. The sun literally does not rise tomorrow in some universe (and this can be caused by any number of things: perhaps nuclear fission results in the sun exploding; or perhaps the heart of the sun quantum leaps to the Orion Nebula.

As a result of all this, perhaps a better headline for that article could have been: Science Doesn’t Exist – Study. Because you cannot have science when your framework is everything happens in SOME universe. There is no scientific reason, under this theory, why an action occurs in any specific universe (it’s random as to which universe it will act in and which it will not), and therefore science cannot explain anything that occurs. Not only are we left with no inductive reasoning, we are left without causation either. (Why is it that x follows y? Because this universe had that particular random split occur…)

Naturally, Quantum Mechanics is difficult to understand. But one thing we know is that you cannot “solve” the problems of Quantum Mechanics by undermining the foundations that brought forth Quantum Mechanics in the first place. That would simply be self-refuting, and that’s what we get with this study.

A couple of weeks ago, I was surfing the net minding my own business when I forgot to turn at Albuquerque and ended up looking at a math test with lots of various problems on it. One of them that I remember in particular was in the following format (and I’ve seen similar questions in places like IQ tests, the SAT/ACT, etc.):

Adam is 6 years old. He is twice as old as his brother, Bill. How old will Adam be when he is one and a half times as old as Bill?

Interestingly, when I solved this problem, I just read it and it “felt” like the answer would be 9, so I plugged it in and it turns out that the answer is, indeed, 9. But afterwards I started to think about it a bit and wondered just what the process would be if it wasn’t so simple to plug in the values. What if the question had been:

Adam is 48 years old. He is twice as old as his brother, Bill. How old will Adam be when he is one and a half times as old as Bill?

Obviously, it isn’t as easy to “feel” the correct answer for the second one. (Or I should say, for me it’s not as easy–I’m sure there are some math prodigies who are thinking, No problem there either!). In any case, since I wanted to know what the process was to figure this out, I did just that…I figured out the process. And now I’ll share it with you so you don’t have to Google it elsewhere. :-)

We’ll use the simpler first problem, and then use our conclusions there to tackle the second problem. So how do we go about solving this problem? First we know that Adam is 6 years old. He is twice as old as his brother, Bill. Therefore, the first thing we need to do is solve for Bill’s age (which, while simple enough for most people to have no trouble doing this in their head, I will demonstrate).

First, here’s what we know:

Adam’s Age = 6
Adam’s Age = 2 x Bill’s Age

Now, since Adam’s Age = 6, we can plug that in:

6 = 2 x Bill’s Age

Divide 2 from each side, and you get:

3 = Bill’s Age.

So Bill is 3 years old. Thus far, it’s pretty simple; but now comes the hard part. We now need to solve for how old Adam would be when he is one and a half times the age of Bill. For ease, we’ll make Adam’s age = A and Bill’s age = B. Here’s what we know:

A = 6 and B = 3. The ratio between A/B = 2; hence, Adam is twice as old as Bill. Now we need to figure out how old Adam must be so that the ratio between A/B = 1.5 (or 3/2, for ease in writing).

First, the long way. We are looking for the ratio between Adam’s and Bill’s age, when both of them age by the same number of years. In short, we are looking for:

(A + x) = 3/2 (B + x)

To factor this out, we multiply both sides by 2 (to get rid of the denominator in 3/2):

2(A + x) = 3(B + x)

This yeilds:

2A + 2x = 3B + 3x

Since we began with A = 6 and B = 3, we can plug those in and we get:

2(6) + 2x = 3(3) + 3x

12 + 2x = 9 + 3x

2x = -3 + 3x OR: 2x = 3x – 3.

Now here you can simply solve X by subtracting 3x from both sides:

-x = -3

Therefore, x = 3.

Now we can put x back into the above equation:

(A + x) = 3/2 (B + x)

A = 6; B = 3, x = 3

(6 + 3) = 3/2(3 + 3)

9 = 3/2(6)

9 = 18/2

9 = 9

Therefore, we have solved the problem. Adam will be 9 years old. This is the “standard” full explanation. However, I thought there must be some simpler way of doing all this, and it turns out that there is! Remember that we are looking at the ratio between two ages (A/B). These ages are increasing by a factor of x. As they increase, the result of the ratio changes. What is the only thing that does not change between A and B?

The difference between A and B! In our first example, A – B will always be equal to 3, no matter how many years we add to both of them. And this, my friends, is the key to the trick! All you have to do to solve these problems is to figure out the difference between the two ages and then multiply that number by the ratio we are expecting to find.

So, in the first problem we see that the difference between Adam’s age and Bill’s age is 3 years. Further, we see that we are trying to find the ratio of 3/2 (because we want to know how old Adam will be when he is 1 and 1/2 times Bill’s age). Multiply both sides of the ratio by the difference in ages and you get (3 x 3)/(2 x 3) or 9/6. Viola! Problem solved!

So let us look at the second, more complicated problem where Adam = 48 when he is twice Bill’s age. Once again, we solve the first portion:

A = 48
B = 48/2 = 24

A – B = 24, so the difference in ages is 24 years. We are looking, once again, for the ratio of 3/2, so we know that Adam will be (24 x 3) when Bill is (24 x 2). 24 x 3 = 72, so Adam will be 72 when Bill is 48. And we can prove this answer is right by dividing 72/48 = 1.5 (or 3/2).

Armed with this, you will now be able to solve even more complex word problem, like:

Adam is 17 years older than Bill. How old will Adam be when he is twice Bill’s age?

The difference between the two ages is 17. We are looking for the ratio of 2/1 (when Adam is twice Bill’s age). Multiply both sides of the ratio by 17 and you get (17 x 2)/(17 x 1) = 34/17. And we can check by seeing that 34/17 = 2.

I should note that this only works here if you have a problem in this format, however. For instance, it’s a little more complicated (and I’ll address it in another post) if you were trying to solve:

Adam is four times as old as Bill. Bill is 6 years old. How old will Adam be when Bill is half his age?

Again, I’ll address that in another post. For now, have fun on your SAT.

UPDATE: By the way, ignore what I said about how it’s more complicated in a different format. It’s not. It’s the same thing. (This is why I should eat food on my lunch break!) :-)

To solve the other one: A = 4 times Bill = 24 years old. 24 -6 = 18 (difference in age). 18 * 2 = 36. 36/18 = 2/1 ratio. Thus, it still fits.

The title of this blog post pretty much says it all…

If you want to spend two hours watching people make the worst possible choices at every single opportunity, you can turn on CSPAN whenever they’re covering Congressional speeches and watch it for free. Or, you can pay your hard earned money and go watch 30 Days of Night.

I decided to watch this movie because my review of it had not yet been written to disabuse me of the notion that it could be a good movie. After all, the plot summary had some potential. It takes place in Barrow, Alaska (bonus points for me since I was born in AK, and since I have an aunt who lived in Barrow), it takes place during the winter when the sun doesn’t rise (hence the 30 days of night), and it had vampires in it.

I’m tempted to put a “Plot spoiler” alert here, but it would be too generous to call the random events that occur during 30 Days of Night “plot.” Thus, I shall issue my:

Those who think I’m exaggerating the pointlessness of what happens in this story really ought to trust me here; but go watch it if you doubt. Ye shall come forth heaping praise upon me for mine warning.

Anyway, the story opens up with everyone’s cell phones being stolen and burned. Despite the fact that not everyone’s cell phone is stolen and burned. In fact, everyone who needs a cell phone still has a cell phone. Also in fact, the disappearing cell phones have absolutely no purpose in the story. Oh yeah, also also in fact, later on the vampires are going to destroy the cell tower anyway rendering the stolen cell phones completely superflous, unnecessary, and otherwise Congressional.

Then the movie suddenly flashes to a scene of a bunch of huskies. They’re barking and growling and there’s spooky music as they get slaughtered.

Then we’re back to normal and you’re never quite sure why all the dogs were killed. Supposedly it’s so later on no one can mush out of town for freedom. I’m thinking the movie producers don’t know where Barrow is.

Speaking of that…why aren’t there any Eskimos living in Barrow?

Oh well. The movie begins the human slaughter by having the guy in the cell tower hear a sudden noise outside. Naturally, this makes the idiot wander out about 500 yards from the entrance to the cell tower, armed with a flashlight, as he investigates. Because, ya know, people who live in a town that has to deal with polar bears always wander out in the cold armed with a flashlight whenever they hear a “mysterious” noise that sounds like someone banging a pot with a spoon.

Again oh well. As the random events progress, people mysteriously die, getting slaughtered left and right. You can’t keep track of any characters, but it’s not like it matters because you’re sitting there thinking, “These people are too dumb to have me concern myself about them.”

Case in point: two guys are hooking up with a girl and they decide to do “Paper-Rock-Scissors” to decide which of the two guy’s houses they’ll go back to. Lo and behold, they get through “Paper-Rock” and BAM! one of the guys disappears. So the surviving girl and the guy stand there like complete idiots calling out the missing guy’s name.

Don’t worry, a few seconds later his body comes falling out of the sky. The girl takes off running while the guy continues to stand there. You know, like what you’d do if you just saw someone get whisked away into thin air and then deposited next to you from a great height.

Later on, the movie manages to top this. One of the characters decides he’s going to walk to Wainwright. His son decides, after having seen lots of people being killed left and right by vampires, that the smart thing to do would be to run down the middle of the street yelling, “DAD!” as loud as he can.

Amazingly enough, he got killed by the vampires. Who woulda seen THAT one coming?

Frankly, by the end of the movie you realize that no character in the script has the sense God gave a bag of pork rinds. In fact, you could replace half the cast with those bags of pork rinds and the collective IQ of the characters would have doubled.

Now I’m not going to ruin the ending for you because it’s bad enough I don’t need to do so. But the net result of this movie is a whopping F. And that’s being generous.

Bottom line: I’m a writer. If I had written this script, I’d look at taking up figure skating.

Yesterday, I stopped by Taco Bell for dinner (since I wanted my Taco Bell Piece Prize like Algore). And I was finally recognized as the awesome, prolific writer that I am!

Yes, the dude at the counter, whom I have never met (I hadn’t met the dude before, not the counter), said: “Aren’t you the guy that used to bike down Cheyenne all the time?”

I said: “Yes, I am that guy.”

It was a beautiful moment. I was instantly recognized.

I am the guy!!!

Yesterday, I saw the headline about how Disney had “removed God” from the Ten Commandments radio commercial. I ignored it because, frankly, I couldn’t care less about what Disney does to radio commercials that I’ll never listen to about movies I’ll never watch.

But today I was bored so I finally clicked the link, and now that I see why they did it….

I agree with their decision.

First off, here’s the original script:

Narrator: One of the greatest stories of all time is now an animated movie event for the entire family … “The Ten Commandments.”

God: Moses, give them my message and they will follow you out of Egypt.

Narrator: An ordinary man, an extraordinary calling.

Moses: Let my people go!

Narrator: With Ben Kingsley, Christian Slater, Alfred Molina and Elliott Gould. … chosen by God.

Moses: On to the promised land!

Narrator: ‘The Ten Commandments,’ Rated G. Now in theaters. Check your local listings.

Disney replaced the phrase “Chosen by God” with “From Promenade Pictures.” Why? Because:

Radio Disney has said in other media reports that it made the request because its policies require mention of the studio in its commercials and it decided to replace the “chosen by God” phrase with “from Promenade Pictures” because the original script made it sound as though the actors were chosen by God, not Moses, as was the intended meaning.

Now whether the requirements to list the studio name is relevant in the grand scheme is, for our purposes here, irrelevant. The fact is that the line DOES appear to have just been thrown in there. It has no connection to anything. It’s a dangling line (worse than a dangling modifier), and it does indeed read like the actors were chosen by God.

In point of fact, the phrase “chosen by God” seems so out of place in this spot, if I was the editor I’d have cut it too. The only way to keep it in is if you add some kind of context. How about, “A man, chosen by God, to deliver His people”? That would have worked perfectly.

Instead, they use a sentence fragment without contextual meaning surrounding it and an editor did his or her job in cutting the irrelevant phrase. But because it uses the word “God” it’s now a controversy.

Don’t get me wrong. Some secularists would slash any mention of God no matter what. But when there are real issues (like the congressional flag issue), why point to such a stupid one as this? It’s just manufacturing controversy for the sake of controversy.

Besides, a blind man can see that the “Chosen by God” phrase is nothing more than a subliminal advertisment for RC Sproul’s awesome book….

Or should we just say he’s a more consistent secular humanist than most other secular humanists?

This is the problem when people want the result of a Biblical worldview (“For there is neither Greek nor Jew…”) without believing in a Biblical worldview. If you are a materialist, like Watson is, the end result is that you have to be consistent to your materialistic view. And materialism cannot account for universal human rights. There are no rights at all. No one is “created” equal at all. And there is no moral reason not to discriminate if need be.

Thus you can make blanket statements that whites are more intelligent than blacks (usually “softened” by claiming blacks are more athletic than whites–but everyone knows brains over brawn…you know, like how the dinosaurs died because they were big and stupid but mammals lived because they were small and smart? etc.). There is no reason not to because the small sample that Watson has looked at fits this mould.

Further, Watson would like for us to ensure the bottom 10% of people (the really stupid people) can’t breed, so that the gene pool becomes better. This is the inevitable result of rational self-interest combined with evolutionary ethics. If we want to evolve to better individuals, we have to become less altruistic and we have to weed out the weaklings.

Ignore all references to Hitler at this point, of course. All that matters is that we can define “most fit” as “most like me.”

Again, this is par for the course for secularists. This is what they are logically reduced to because there is no rational basis for any type of ethics in a materialistic worldview. There is no one created in the image of God, and therefore there is no reason to respect humanity any more than you’d respect the chemical reaction in a bottle of vinegar mixed with baking soda. Both are nothing more than events that occur. The meaning to the events are assigned subjectively by individuals, and if those subjective individuals decide that certain traits are undesireable enough to kill over, there is no higher standard to say that these conclusions are wrong. This is the inevitable result of secular humanism. This is what happens when secular humanists believe their philosophy.

And this is why Christians are obligated to promote an alternative worldview–the Biblical worldview.

It occured to me a couple of days ago that it’s mid-October. November is time for NaNoWriMo! And now it’s only 2 weeks away.

Therefore, I hereby offer you the best way to not start a novel:

Most families have someone who is the first to do something. The first college graduate. The first doctor. The first woman to be executed on death row.

Billy Girardi was like everyone else, longing to be the first in his family. But now, as he became the first in his family to be vaporized by the machine he had built in his basement, his mind only had time to register one simple thought of regret.

He’d never get a chance to be the first person in his family to die of scurvey.

This is the perfect way to not open up a novel in so many ways…except now I want to know who Billy Girardi is and what machine he built and why he’d be demented enough to wish for scruvey. ARGH!

Perhaps a better way to open a novel would be the mystic Buddhist way:

You should not read this novel because this sentence is superfluous.

That’s one of those cool sentences, because it’s not superfluous until after you read it in which case you realize, yeah it was superfluous.

Hmm…I do think the absolute worst way to start a work fiction still has got to be:

Early on the morning of August 19, 1946, I was born under a clear sky after a violent summer storm to a widowed mother in the Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, a town of about six thousand in southwest Arkansas, thirty-three miles east of the Texas border at Texarkana.

Yes, for a better worst opening, I definitely have my work cut out for me.

Speculation is running wild.

After years of playing second fiddle to Mary’s appearance in a pancake, a grilled cheese sandwich, an overpass water stain, etc. et cetera &c, Pope John Paul II has apparently had enough.

He’s burst into flames.

For the unbeliever, here’s proof:

Granted, it looks more like him if you squint your eyes and put on Rosary-colored glasses. Ignore the chuckles from the Protestant gallery asking if the reason the Pope is appearing in flames is so he can warn Catholics of their eternal destination. What we have here is the ultimate proof that JPII has not died, but merely changed professions.

Batman beware. The pontiff is now Pyropope.

Yes, I made that part up. Unfortunately, I didn’t make up the part about how the flames supposedly look like John Paul II.

Now that the Rockies are in the World Series, we can sit back and ponder a few amazing facts about this run.

First, let’s update that sign. It’s now 21 of 22, including 10 in a row now. Which means, yes, they had two winning streaks of 10 games since September. They’re now tied for the most consecutive playoff wins ever (7). If they win the first game of the World Series, they will have that record by themselves.

It’s simply amazing to think that the Rockies are undefeated in October. And they’re still playing. To think, they were in last place in the NL in July. But one thing that people have forgotten is that the Dbacks had the NL’s best record at the end of the year. The Rockies…were 1/2 game behind them (it would have been a full game, but the Rockies won the tie-breaker, which counted as part of the regular season).

And now the Rockies have a record 8 days to rest before the World Series begins.

Part of me is wishing it was sooner than that. Keep the fire going!