A Relaxing Week

June 25, 2007. Moody, Alabama --- I had a very relaxing week. An elderly couple friend of mine gave me an advanced birthday gift --- a 5-day stay at their beachfront condominium unit in Orange Beach. But in spite on the abundance of the sun and the fun, something was missing in my life--- no Internet! I brought with me my laptop with a roaming capability. But when I got there, there was no WiFi  in the vicinity and I wondered how come all those people who were there were only interested in swimming and water surfing and sunbathing.

 I did not know that Alabama has beautiful beaches down there along the Gulf of Mexico. I initially thought that Alabama is a landlock state. But a simple peruse of the map would show that it has a very short strip of shoreline squeezed between Florida and Mississippi. And that short strip happens to be a very beautiful shoreline. I had to see it to believe it. And the sand, oh my! It was as white as the sands in Boracay.

 It was also my first time to dip in the blue-green waters of the Atlantic. The first time that I stepped on the shores of the  Gulf of Mexico was way back in 1992 when we had a 5-week tour in South Texas, courtesy of Rotary International. The high point of that tour was our one-week R & R at the resort island of South Padre. The first thing that I noticed then was that the color of the water in Atlantic was greenish while Pacific Ocean is pure blue. Maybe it has something to do with the kind of algae and other microorganisms that thrive in each ocean.

 Six years ago this week, I was at the opposite end of the US mainland. Together with Shinar, Manang Vi, Shinar’s sister Pilar and Shinar’s nephew Svend, we drove for about 12 hours from Shinar’s place in Missouri before we reached the northernmost tip of Michigan where you can see four of the five great lakes stretched out in different directions. Canada was just a bridge apart. I wrote about that experience and  posted it in My Notes titled “At The GreatLakes On The First Day of Summer 20001. ”

 Time passed by so swiftly. All I did was riding the waves if not backstroking in the swimming pool and it was time to go home. I did not even find time to use my fishing gear. Seashells were very abundant and we have gathered quiet a large collection. By Thursday, we left the place for another 5 hour drive back to our home in Birmingham.                                                    

From the Land of the Amish to the Lake of the Ozarks and other exotic places

 

    July 1, 2001. Bridgewood, CT.  My one-month stint in Shinar‘s place brought me to places I never dreamed to set foot on, many of them I only read in books and magazines.

     On my first Sabbath in the Midwest, we attended a camp meeting held at the campus of Graceland University in the town of Lamoni situated on the state boundary between Missouri and Iowa. A camp meeting is similar to our association rally in the Philippines except that ours is done by district while theirs is conference-wide. The principal speaker was the President of the North American Division. In the afternoon, we took a side trip to visit Jamesport---an Amish country. That was my first time to see the Amish with all their primitive way of life---no electricity, no motorized vehicles, no TV, no nothing. Previously, my Amish knowledge consisted only of occasional articles I read from newspapers and magazines and the movie, The Witness, starring Harrison Ford.

    On Sunday of the following week we made a 3-hour drive to Saint Louis, a city known for its magnificent Gateway Arch. This is also the home of the first aviator to cross the Atlantic, Charles Lindberg---his plane, Spirit of St. Louis, was named after the patron saint of this city. St. Louis lie along the Mississippi River on the boundary of Illinois. From the summit of the Arch you can see the entire St. Louis on the west and a large portion of Illinois on the east. Beneath the ground level of the arch is the Museum of Westward Expansion. From there we went to St. Louis Science Center and the Purina Farms. On our way home, we made a stopover at the tomb of that famous American pioneer Daniel Boone in Marthasville.

    Last June 13 we went to the legendary Lake of the Ozarks. It was the most scenic place in Missouri. We made a stop-over at one 5-star resort hotel, loitered in their spacious terrace then went to the marina and took turns feeding those gigantic carps and catfish with the remnants of hand-baked breads we bought at an Amish bakery the week before. Before reaching the Ozarks, we made a brief stopover at the Harry S. Truman Dam

    The Truman Lake is one of the tributaries to the Lake of the Ozarks before it empties its waters to the snake-winding Missouri River. I learned that President Truman, one of the greatest personalities that Missouri has ever produced was born in Independence a city not far from Kansas.

    On our way back from our Great Lakes Escapades we made a 2-day stopover at the Saldias in Berrien Springs. In the afternoon of June 23 we made a side trip to the Amish Acres, another amish colony in Northern Indiana. We were rather quite a big group consisting of Amy and her 2 kids: Amythst and Don, Shinar, Manang Vi, Shinar’s sister Pilar and Danish nephew Svend together with Pilar’s childhood friends from Chicago, Nenett and Twoots and her son Dwaine.

    Leaving Berrien Springs on our way home to Sweet Springs last Sunday (June 24) we made a brief stopover at Springfield, the state capital of Illinois and the birthplace of President Abraham Lincoln. Shinar’s 11-year old Danish nephew, Svend, contended that that was the place of the Simpson Family (one popular carton series) but considering that there are so many Springfields in the US, we reserved our judgment on the validity of his contention. We posed for some photos with the statue of the 6th US president.

     Reaching Missouri using the northern route we made a stopover at Hannibal, that sleepy little town by the Mississippi which was put on the map of world literature by its most famous resident by the name of Mark Twain. Samuel Clemens in real life, Twain created the two famous fictional characters Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in his book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. All the fictional characters in that book were based on real people living in Hannibal during his time. We joined the guided tour inside the historical Mark Twain Cave which was a maze of passageways and cracks. What an experience that was!

Going Under

    Last Friday, March 16, 2018, I went under the knife at the G.I. Lab of the Loma Linda University Medical Center. No, not really, I am simply exaggerating a bit. I just went under the gaze of a specialist through a colonoscope. While on our way to the hospital, my sidekick, Trent, asked me “what time is your endoscopy, Kuya?” I told him, “Trent, endoscopy is on the front end, mine is rear-end.” I guess that’s the best way to describe colonoscopy. Trent was supposed to drive my car back to the house once I get to the hospital but decided at the last minute to stay with me throughout the procedure so we parked our car at Building P3 and walked our way to the main building which is just adjacent to it.

    I presented myself to the receptionist at the lobby. Her name is Regina and she and my wife are friends. Earlier that day, she was already informed by my wife that I am coming. As I was standing before her, she asked for my name and birthday while looking at the computer monitor. “Herbolingo!” I said, “H-E-R-B-O…” She looked at me and said, “So, you are…,” “Yes! I am…” She smiled and extended her hand to me. She completed the registration and handed me that gadget that beeps or vibrates when your turn is come.

     A male orderly guided me and Trent to the second floor, brought me to a cubicle with a bed and I was given a hospital gown and a pair of non-slip socks and told me to undress. Trent put away all my personal belongings in a laundry bag and helped me put on the gown. As I laid down on the bed, the pre-op began. My left arm was inserted into a blood pressure cuff, several cold sensors were attached to my chest and back, a tiny clear plastic tube was attached at the end of my right middle finger to measure my body’s oxygen level. “Ninety-six percent!” somebody shouted.

     A nurse was negotiating to find a vein on my left arm where she could poke a needle and create a small opening into my body for the medicines to flow through later. She was not successful. A second nurse came to help. They tried a second location, poked again. Still they could not find any willing vein. Finally, a third nurse came. She must be the best vein finder in their team because I can sense that she exuded confidence. Her confidence soon decimated. She had a hard time either. Then they moved to my right arm and tried several locations. Finally, they found one solitary vein in the middle of my inner arm, grabbed it, punctured it and attached the device that kept it open. After they left, my left arm was still sore and a little numb.

     Another nurse put a mask on my face and told me to breathe deeply under the mask. That I did almost in cadence and what followed next was unforgettable. I can see several people looking down on me. Then gradually, my vision became darker and darker just like a computer monitor whose brightness was gradually adjusted to dark by turning a button. At the same time my hearing became fainter and fainter as if the people around me were getting farther and farther away. It was a battle between my consciousness and the anesthesia concoction that started seeping into my system. Time and again, human consciousness always gives way.

    When I opened my eyes, the anesthesiologist who met with me two days earlier for a pre-anesthesia assessment was beside me smiling. “Hi Hermes, you remember me?” “Oh, yes, I remember you.” I said. He was that boyish looking doctor with a Chinese face. During our pre-anesthesia conference, I asked him, “Are you Chinese?” He said, “Yes, I am Chinese but my last name is Thai.” Feeling confident that my anesthesiologist was already there, I asked him, “So, when will the procedure start?” He smiled again and told me, “The procedure is finished. You were deeply sedated so you did not remember anything.  Shortly, a nurse will hand to you a report. Read it so that you will know the result of the procedure.” Then he looked at the wall clock and said, “You’re good to go now.” The nurses started removing all the attachments to my body. “I’m glad, I am wireless again!” I told them. Everybody smiled.   

Measuring The Unmeasurable

 

“The heart of science is measurement.” - Erik Brynjolfsson

    More than  2,000 years ago,   Eratosthenes  calculated  the size of the Earth  with   reasonable accuracy.  Calculating the Earth’s circumference  (the distance around a circle  or sphere) was his most lasting achievement. He computed this by using simple geometry and trigonometry and by recognizing Earth as a sphere in  space.  Most Greek scholars at the time agreed that   Earth was a sphere,  but none knew how big it was.

   How did Greek scholars know the Earth was a sphere? They observed that departing ships disappeared over the horizon while their masts were still visible. They saw the curved shadow of the Earth on the Moon during lunar eclipses. And they noticed the changing positions of the stars in the sky.

     Eratosthenes heard about a famous well in the Egyptian city of Swenet (Syene in Greek, and now known as Aswan), on the Nile River. At noon one day each year — the summer solstice (between June 20 and June 22) — the Sun’s rays shone straight down into the deep pit. They illuminated only the water at the bottom, not the sides of the well as on other days, proving that the Sun was directly overhead. Syene was located very close to what we call the Tropic of Cancer, about 23.5 degrees north, the northernmost latitude at which the Sun is ever directly overhead at noon.

     Eratosthenes erected a pole in Alexandria, and on the summer solstice he observed that it cast a shadow, proving that the Sun was not directly overhead but slightly south. Recognizing the curvature of the Earth and knowing the distance between the two cities would enable Eratosthenes to calculate the planet’s circumference. To determine the distance between Syene and Alexandria, Eratosthenes hired bematists, professional surveyors trained to walk with equal length steps. They found that Syene lies about 5000 stadia from Alexandria.

     Knowing the vertical height of the pole and the horizontal distance of its shadow as two legs of a right triangle, Eratosthenes determined the angle of the sun’s rays to be 7.2 degrees. That angle is one-fiftieth (1/50) of 360 degrees---the full angle of a circle. Multiplying the distance of the two cities by 50 (5000 x 50)  gave him the circumference of the Earth to be 250,000 stadia or 25,000 miles or 40,000 kilometers!

     Today, orbiting satellites routinely measure the earth’s circumference to be 24,901 miles. Eratosthenes’ ancient calculation  is only 00.4% off the modern measurement which is a remarkable feat considering the crude technology of his time.

A diagram showing how Eratosthenes measured the Earth

 

The Search For Truth

 

“Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?” – John 18:38.

    Every time I come across the biblical passage in John 18:38, I have some feelings of regret. I would play the scenario in my mind: what if, Pilate lingered a little more to hear what would be Jesus’ answer to his philosophical question? Of course, the Bible is replete with Jesus’ expositions of what truth is. And yet, I am still interested on what Jesus would have said on this occasion. But Pilate, being a typical politician was not really interested in finding the truth. He was more concerned with pleasing the mob to improve his approval rating. 

     So, what is truth? That’s the first question that came to mind once I decided to write a book about truth. The dictionary defines truth as “the state or quality of being true.” Not a very satisfying definition. So I researched some more and unknowingly entered into an unfamiliar territory, an area of knowledge called philosophy and epistemology where I encountered many exotic terminologies so foreign to me. Anyways, my brief incursions and wanderings paid off by giving me a deeper understanding about truth.

     Accordingly, there are quite a number of views or theories of truth. But since I am not writing a treatise on philosophy, but just a simple book for the average man on the street, I would limit our discussion to only two views of truth: (1) Correspondence View, and (2) Coherence View.

     Correspondence View states that a proposition must correspond with a fact or event in order to be acknowledged as truth. If I say, “two plus two equals four!” nobody will disagree with me because I can always produce two bananas and another two bananas to make it four bananas! Mathematical truths are good illustrations of this view. Another area which is a good example of this view is history. When I say that “The World Trade Center in New York was destroyed on September 11, 2001 by smashing commercial jetliners on its towers”  I am stating a historical fact, never mind the conspiracy theorists’ claim that it was perpetrated by the deep state.

     Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969. But did it really happen? Quite lately, a certain group of people circulated a story about how we never landed on the Moon. The questioning intensified after the Fox television network aired ''Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?'' Those who doubt the Apollo moon landings maintained the United States lacked the technology to send humans to the Moon and was so desperate to appear to win the space race against the Soviet Union that it faked the moon mission on movie sets. They suggested that the shooting was done at a desert in Nevada.

     The doubters said the fake was done so poorly that there is ample evidence of fraud, including a picture of astronauts planting the American flag that allegedly shows the flag rippling in the wind. The skeptics contended there can be no breeze on the moon, so the picture must have been faked.

     Now, this may sound a trivial issue to some but come to think of it. Did man really land on the moon on July 20, 1969? If you believe so, what is the basis of your belief? Did you ever make a critical, unbiased study on whether this event really happened? Personally, I believe that it happened because I saw it on TV and heard it over the radio. But is it enough evidence? Can you believe everything you see on TV and hear on radio? Fortunately, I can enumerate some more proofs to back up my claim of its truthfulness:

1.     The astronauts who landed on the moon have returned and can testify that they were there and they are still with us.

2.     Both the NASA and the Soviet Space Agency staffed by hundreds of scientists and engineers have monitored the entire process of the moon landing and they have records of that activity in their archives.

3.     The astronauts have brought with them moon rocks and those rocks were studied and scrutinized by hundreds of scientists throughout the world.

4.     The moon landing was not a single event. It was repeated several times. Apollo 11 was followed by Apollo 12, 14, 15 and 16 and all have been successful. Twelve people in all.

     But what amazed me was the fact that, in spite of the overwhelming evidence of the truthfulness about the moon landing, there are still a group of people who sincerely believe it did not take place.

     It happened in LA a few years ago. One of those unbelievers by the name Bart Sibrel confronted astronaut Buzz Aldrin at a Beverly Hills hotel and demanded that Aldrin swear on a Bible that he had in fact walked on the moon. Aldrin, the second man ever to touch the lunar surface, who was already in his 70s by this time, punched the 37-year-old Sibrel in the face. Sibrel asked that assault charges be filed, but Los Angeles County prosecutors declined. A videotape of the incident showed Sibrel following Aldrin on the street with a Bible and calling him a ''thief, liar and coward,'' one prosecutor said.

     The second view, the Coherence View states that a belief or a proposition is true if it “coheres” or is consistent with the other things a person believes to be true. ^[1] Let me illustrate. Last year, there was a picture of a father from the Philippines which made rounds in Facebook. The picture showed him holding a placard which said “My daughters (2 doctors, 2 nurses) are working in America,” followed by the pictures and names of his daughters. At the bottom, he scribbled: “I’m an old man now. Send me food. I worked hard in Saudi [Arabia] to send you to school.”

     That picture generated so much sympathy for the father and ignited hatred and contempt towards the four “ungrateful” daughters among Facebook users. I, too, was incensed when I first saw it. But then, I came to my better senses and said to myself: Wait a minute, something is not right here. There must be a very grave reason why all the four daughters abandoned their father. Such despicable act runs counter against the fabric of the hollowed culture and tradition among Filipinos. It is simply not believable! So I withheld my judgment on the issue.

     The following day, one of the daughters spoke up also in Facebook. This was her version of the story: Their father abandoned them when they were still small and went away with a younger woman. It was their god-fearing mother who raised them alone and worked hard to put all of them to school. When they finished college and already working as medical professionals, their father, who was already old, contacted them asking for financial support so they took turns giving him financial allowance on a regular basis. But the father complained that the amount they were giving is not enough and he wanted his daughters to also provide financial support to his still small children with the other woman because he is no longer capable of working. Moreover, he threatened them that if they will not support his other children, he would embarrass them in Facebook.

     Now, who is telling the truth: the father or the daughter? Weighing the claims of both sides, I can immediately say that the daughter is telling the truth because her explanation is more coherent. Later on, the daughter’s claim was re-enforced by the concurrence and public testimonies from friends and relatives who know the family well.

     Today, pebbles of truth, mixed with clumps of lies, half-truths and falsehood are scattered all around---including the social media. It is our moral obligation to gather the pebbles to build our own structure of reality.

Falling Apples And Ocean Tides

    Up to the 17th century, our scientific knowledge was largely influenced by the Aristotelian thought. Aristotle's worldview can be summarized by the following fundamental principles:

§  Geocentric. The Earth is stationary and is at the center of the universe or cosmos. The moon, planets and the sun revolve around the Earth, completing a revolution about every 24 hours.

§  The universe is divided into two regions. The region between the Earth and the Moon (including the Earth itself) is called the sublunar region and the region beyond the Moon is the superlunar region.

§  In the sublunar region, there are four basic elements, these being earth, water, air, and fire. 

§  Objects in the superlunar region like the sun and planets are composed of a fifth basic element called ether.

     In Aristotle’s geocentric model, the basic elements move toward their “natural place.” To accomplish this, the universe is divided into four concentric spheres. The first sphere is the Earth itself. Surrounding the Earth is a concentric sphere that is the natural realm of water, surrounded by the natural realm of air, and  then  the  natural realm  of  fire above that.  Thus,  Earth sinks in water,  water sinks in the air,  and flames rise above  air.  Everything gravitates  toward  its natural  place  in Aristotle’s worldview,  and  it comes  across as fairly consistent with our intuitive understanding and basic observations about how the world works.

     In 1608, a Dutch spectacle maker, Hans Lippershey, announced a new lens-based instrument that made distant objects appear much closer.  The instrument would later be called “telescope.” The following year, Galileo Galilei heard about the Dutch “perspective glasses” and within days had designed one of his own---without ever seeing one.  Other astronomers and natural philosophers followed suit and trained the sights of their new instrument to the heavens. The telescope enabled them to see more objects in space. Galileo was able to make out mountains and craters on the moon, as well as a ribbon of diffuse light arching across the sky — the Milky Way. He also discovered the rings of Saturn, sunspots and four of Jupiter's moons. But the most profound and startling discovery was that the Earth is not the center of the universe. The observers discovered that all planets revolve around the sun---including Earth itself. Thus Aristotle’s worldview was proven wrong!

     The geocentric model was not the only prevailing view at the time. As early as the third century BC, Aristarchus of Samos proposed heliocentrism---the idea that the Earth and the planets revolve around the Sun. But Aristarchus’ heliocentrism attracted little attention---possibly because of the loss of scientific works of the Hellenistic period.  Aristotle was so influential that his geocentric model was embraced by the Roman Catholic Church and became part of her doctrines.

     When Galileo began proclaiming that geocentrism is wrong, that the planets, including Earth revolve around the Sun, he was arrested and accused of being a heretic for opposing church’s teachings. In 1633, he was tried and condemned before the Roman Catholic Inquisition. The crime of heresy was punishable by death. But because of Galileo’s stature in the scientific community, he was cleared of charges of heresy, but was placed under house arrest and told that he should no longer publicly state his belief that Earth moved around the Sun. He was under house arrest for 8 years until his death in1642 at the age of 77. It took the Church more than 350 years before Pope John Paul II issued an apology in 1996 to rectify one of the Church’s most infamous wrongs. 

     During Newton’s time, Aristotle’s geocentric worldview was practically debunked and the heliocentric model became the accepted norm in the scientific world. But for serious thinkers, a scientific question remains: Why do planets revolve around the sun? Isaac Newton was still a young university student when he began pondering on the problem. He understood that the planets revolve around the Sun because the Sun pulls them toward itself. But why don’t they just fall in and burned up? It is because these planets are initially in sideward motion. Just like when you tie an object with a string, when you swing around while holding the other end of the string, the object orbits around you. The force that pulls the planets toward the Sun is called gravity.

     In 1665 the Great Plague epidemic hit London in which a quarter of the city's population would die. Just like what we do today, they practiced "social distancing" to contain the outbreak. Schools were closed and students were sent home. Young Isaac Newton went home to Woolsthorpe Manor, his family's estate about 60 miles northwest of Cambridge. The epidemic lasted 18 months which gave Newton ample time to work on the gravity problem in the comfort of home.

     One late afternoon he was in the garden when he saw an apple drop from a tree. There’s no evidence to suggest the fruit actually landed on his head. But it was an “aha moment” for Newton.  He came to the realization that the force that pulls the apple to the earth is the same kind of force that keeps the planets in orbit around the sun. And while the Earth is pulling the apple, the apple is also pulling the Earth but since the Earth is so massive and the apple so relatively tiny, it’s the apple that comes to the Earth and not the Earth to the apple. Just like a small boat and a large ship floating stationary on the ocean pulling each other. Eventually, it’s the boat that moves toward the ship and not the other way around. Each object in the universe pulls every other object! That’s how Newton came up with the Universal Law of Gravitation.

     The universal law of gravitation  became  one of the prime movers  in the rapid advances of science and technology.  But the law is far from perfect.  Newton’s  mathematical model fails  when the objects are too massive and/or the distances are infinitesimally small. It took more than 200 years before Albert Einstein  came  up with his Theory of Relativity  effectively  superseding  Newton’s law.  Although  the theory of  relativity  is  more precise,  it is cumbersome  and  unwieldy to apply.  Today,  engineers  and scientists  still use  Newton’s law  in  space exploration  and  when calculating  trajectories  of  ballistic missiles or passing comets.