Fugato

I’m often asked the question, “Do you think there is extraterrestrial intelligence?” I give the standard arguments — there are a lot of places out there, and use the word billions, and so on. And then I say it would be astonishing to me if there weren’t extraterrestrial intelligence, but of course there is as yet no compelling evidence for it. And then I’m asked, “Yeah, but what do you really think?” I say, “I just told you what I really think.” “Yeah, but what’s your gut feeling?” But I try not to think with my gut. Really, it’s okay to reserve judgment until the evidence is in.

— Carl Sagan, The Burden of Skepticism, in The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 1987

Happy summer solstice, readers near and far (excluding the southern hemisphere). It is today at 18:06 UTC; that’s when the North Pole points closest to the sun.

Here in Reykjavík, sunset tonight is at 00:03. Yeah, three minutes after midnight.

Our time zone designation needs revising at some point.

Kurt Vonnegut must have been the greatest optimist of all pessimists. His novel Cat’s Cradle ends with a jolly narrative of the destruction of life on Earth; armageddon with a grin.

The book probably does not translate well because Vonnegut seems to love wordplay.

In bokononism, a delightful religion made up by Vonnegut, one major ritual is boko-maru, wherein two people sit barefoot facing each other, “letting their soles meet.”

Cat’s Cradle tells of an ominous invention, a new crystal structure for ice having a melting point of 45.8 °C. Below that temperature, it swiftly crystallizes all water into ice upon contact, including the oceans and the water in the human body. This mischievous material is called ice-nine … which sounds like asinine. Vonnegut must have considered this word a good fit for man’s 20th-century pastime of finding practical, cost-effective ways to demolish the planet.

There are two rules of paramount importance in engineering innovation.

1. never reinvent the wheel.
2. always break the rules.

So I guess this was only a matter of time. Presenting: TheWheel™.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

<sarcasm>

Founding the Maharishi University of Management in Iowa is just one of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s many charitable efforts to the furtherance of human prosperity.

The mathematics course descriptions at this institution hint at major breakthroughs in the interpretation of mathematics. A few examples:

• Infinity: From the Empty Set to the Boundless Universe of All Sets — Exploring the Full Range of Mathematics and Seeing its Source in Your Self
• Maharishi Vedic Mathematics: Mathematical Structure and the Transcendental Source of Natural Law
• Calculus 1: Derivatives as the Mathematics of Transcending, Used to Handle Changing Quantities
• Calculus 2: Integrals as the Mathematics of Unification, Used to Handle Wholeness
• Calculus 3: Unified Management of Change in All Possible Directions
• Calculus 4: Locating Silence within Dynamism

This guru revolutionized the field of national defence last February with his website, “Invincible Defence”. It prescribes no less than the complete eradication of terrorism for good, by measures such as a significant increase in the practice of yogic flying. This makes perfect sense: yogic flyers induce harmony around them which produces the Maharishi effect, much like the harmony of superconductance produces the Meissner effect. Just as a superconductor offers “invincible defence” against magnetic fields, flying yogas erect an impenetrable wall defending their nation from the scourge of terrorism.

Hopefully we will all internalize the yogi’s teachings with an open mind, unimpeded by the notorious arrogance of science.

</sarcasm>