Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Disquisitiones on the shysterly implications of E=mc^2

"This is someone who in law school worked with [Harvard professor] Larry Tribe on a paper on the legal implications of Einstein's theory of relativity," said senior adviser David M. Axelrod. "He does have an incisive mind; that mind is always put to use in pursuit of tangible things that are going to improve people's lives."

25 comments:

Mr roT said...

Obama analyzed and integrated Einstein's theory of relativity, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, as well as the concept of curved space as an alternative to gravity, for a Law Review article that Tribe wrote titled, "The Curvature of Constitutional Space."

Link

Tecs, Gen Rel is ''G= 8πT," not "E=mc^2."

Seems you ought to pay.

Incidentally, these newspaper articles ar from the goddamned moon.

Mr roT said...

The Scott Brown thing must really hurt:

For all his success, Obama did suffer one defeat at the Law School: He was rejected by a screening committee of female students for a pinup calendar of black students created as both a fundraiser and a source of black pride.

Mr roT said...

OK, I have made it to page 2. This hero-worship ball-licking is kinda hard to take, Tecs.

As for what Obama reads online, his advisers said he looks for offbeat blogs and news stories, tracking down firsthand reporting and seeking out writers with opinions about his policies. Obama was particularly interested in Atlantic Online's Andrew Sullivan's tweeting of the Iranian elections last year, said an aide, who requested anonymity to discuss what influences the president.

So he's a teagagger?

Mr roT said...

Oh dear...

In early December, Obama invited a group of business people to the White House for a jobs summit, and Paul Krugman made the list. The Nobel Prize-winning New York Times columnist at times has been one of Obama's toughest critics on the left.

Whereas most journalists are brought in to see the president in order to try to shape a news story, the private meeting between Krugman and Obama was something of a policy debate on the economy and health care, although aides would not disclose details. Obama, said one aide, was grateful to have the "intellectual challenge" of an adversary who would help refine his own thinking.


This hagiography is vomitous.

Mr roT said...

Grandma Valerie has to get this in too:
"He likes the rigor of having a conversation with someone who's going to push him," Jarrett said. "There's really no point in him wasting time with people who simply agree with him all the time, because it's not going to refine his position. It's not going to enlighten his position." She added: "Also, then Paul gets to hear an opinion different than his own, too."

Hey, Krugman's being taught a thing or two by Bams too.

Hey, but where are the GenRel lectures being held today in the WH?

Mr roT said...

From p 1:
This fingertip access sends him "constantly" online, said one senior adviser, and the information he finds there influences his thinking and some of his deliberations. He also "uses the Internet like a normal adult," said another aide, "reading news articles, checking sports scores."

Normal adult? POTUS is surfin for porn from the Oval office.

What's all this sports crap in the article? Humanize Spock? What for? No one believes the Spock thing anyway.

Mr roT said...

Comments. Some are fun. Most are stoopid.

Arelcao Akleos said...

Herr Rott: "Tecs, Gen Rel is ''G= 8πT," not "E=mc^2."

Seems you ought to pay. "

The quote you gives states that "Obama analyzed and integrated Einstein's theory of relativity". No where does it specify it as General or Special. In fact, the wise betting man would, if a guess must be hazarded, take it as being the Special variety. Why? Because the quote goes on to say "as well as the concept of curved space as an alternative to gravity". If the original had been general then there would have been absolutely no need to add this "as well as" comment.
Tecumseh this time owes ya squat, Rott. You, however, have a "moral duty", as the 18th Century Scot insurers put it, to pay up as your just desserts for being in moral [probabilistic] hazard as to this wager.
America, of course, does not function as sound, common sensical, members of the Scottish Enlightenment. Instead, it is lawyers Cochraning all the way down. So, by the letter of the law, you do not need to pay up.
Yet, Brother Rott, have you no Conscience? Have you no Shame? If you cannot stomach the thought of providing vast quantities of fine and fiery liquids to the Tecumseh you contend with; why not allow them safekeeping with me? When the moment is at hand for Justice and Payment, I will gladly take on the burden of adjudging Tecumseh, or you, the fair portion.
You can trust me to guard that FCP liquor emporium: as sure as you can trust the President of these United States with the upholding and defense of the Constitution which governs us. Trust in me, little Mowglis, Trust in me.

Mr roT said...

Jeez, AA. You're confused. Take all the derivatives of the Minkowski metric that you want. YOu'll never get curved spacetime that way.

Mr roT said...

Ah, you just want Tecs to win all the time so that you can go to his house and drink the fruits of my honest sweat.

I thought this was a Thelma and Louise like bit of affection you two have accumulated over terrible Portuguese wine and worse food.

I have found some new respect for you.

Mr roT said...

The paper's title: 'Curvature of Constitutional Space.'

AA, maybe we should set up a ledger for you.
Incidentally, when Kräutenmyer breaks the sound barrier with no propulsion other than his knödelfahrten, you'll have a huge tab to pay up.

That's nearly 20 years of interest there...

Tecumseh said...

Jeez, I take a breather of a few hours, and then baaaammm! Twelve comments on my post. I'll try catching up with all the nuances, but the gist of it seems to be that Herr Rott conjectures Obama was waxing poetic on the shysterly implications of General Relativity, and not Special Relativity, as I surmised from the limited context of the story I linked to. Well, maybe so (though I kind of suspect the Rotten Conjecture to be false), but even if true, why would I need to buy Rot a bottle of fizzly? The Rotter Logik is getting more and more abstruse.

Mr roT said...

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

Tecumseh said...

Rott, Rott. I glanced at some of the comments, they don't look that stoopid. Eg: Is the Post talking about the same guy that uses 2 teleprompters to speak at a class of 6th graders? Powww.

Tecumseh said...

Shysters Gone Wild: Another method of constructing constitutional rights described by Tribe are the geodesic - building a dome, like Buckminster Fuller, again out of already existing rights, to protect the freedoms of the individual. The global is another, reinforcing ones argument by reference to laws and practices in other countries. Justice Scalia has been guilty of this practice himself, according to professor Tribe. The geological, unearthing evidence of the intent of the founding fathers in historical sources is the fourth method. The gravitational, where he makes an argument based on Einstein's relativity theory and argues that laws create distortions of the social space time continuum is another. (did I mention that some of this is kind of hard to follow?) And finally the gyroscopic, in which the force of previously made decisions in the court help to stabilize the interpretation of the constitution by weight of their precedent, even when they are wrong.

Professor Tribe is obviously a really smart person and he has had the help of some other really smart people over the years, including a young research assistant who has gone on to bigger things, a fellow named Barry Obama.

Mr roT said...

Stoopid: Right, some are good, a lot are pretty lame. HotAir and Ace have the funniest comments sections, I think. Of course they use coarse language.

I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate.

Arelcao Akleos said...

"Jeez, AA. You're confused. Take all the derivatives of the Minkowski metric that you want. YOu'll never get curved spacetime that way"

etc...etc...

Yer miss da point, Rott. You are assuming that Tribe, never mind the Obamakles, actually know something more or less accurate about the stuff they throw out as "metaphor". From my experience talking to po-mo, law, humanities, soc, folks who have a fetish for throwing in the language of physics into their discussions, the assumption of their knowing something at all [say at the Freshman Physics level] about these things is almost always wrong. What happens is they have read some popular "gee whiz" kinda book, often even just other po-mo, etc.., who use "the metaphor", and that is the extent of their getting it. As part of it, many had no idea about there being Special and General, never mind what is the distinction. Sure they would use phrases such as "the curvature of space", and it would be based on something at the level of a "Cosmos" episode, a ball on a plastic sheet, with a recollection that this had something to do with "Einstein's Relativity". I doubt that Obama, heck I doubt Tribe, knew anything about "the metaphor" other than that it had cache' and that they had a vague image of balls and dips on rubber [which no doubt tantalized their inner Pepe].
These Tribe'smen make Huntington's Schlorea look like serious scholarship.
Betcha the writers talked about "relativity", and "the concept of curved space as an alternative to gravity" as having the same amount of connection as they do with Heisenberg's Principle. It sounds like a garbled mess, because it is a garbled mess.

Mr roT said...

I see your point. The whole thing was a salad and so Tecs giving it another toss was no harm done.

Still, you don't think we can get Prof Moneybags to get us a couple bottles? I mean sure Tribe and Obama didn't have any idea of what they were talking about other than the vague of a billiard ball on the secretary's latex skirt, but Tecs should know, even if he's never seen a PDE like Einstein's equation in his life.

Seems to me that we have a case for some fancy hooch here, AA.

Arelcao Akleos said...

Hmmmm, "we". I could choose sides if the bribe was worthy hooch, for sure.

Arelcao Akleos said...

"Incidentally, when Kräutenmyer breaks the sound barrier with no propulsion other than his knödelfahrten, you'll have a huge tab to pay up"

When the KrispyKraut sprinkles across the landscape, tears of the Nouveau Pauvre will well in your eyes.

Mr roT said...

Aaaaah, so you were corruptible all this time, AA? I thought you had a man-crush on Tecs and it was for that reason that you saw his point of view consistently, no matter how completely insane it was.

So, Coanda or Whittle and von Ohain? Got something in the fridge here...

Tecumseh said...

Hey, Rott, are you trying to pull a Louisiana Purchase mixed with a dollop of Cornhusker Kickback on us? I trust AA will consider things based on their intrinsic merit, rather than your mythical beverages that seldom if ever materialize.

Mr roT said...

AA just wanted to foist Portuguese food on someone...

Tecumseh said...

So when are you gonna invite me for a schnitzel?

Mr roT said...

Pay what you owe. Then we'll talk turkey. Or schwein.