Tulipomania
The quest for the perfect tulip
In his 1850 novel The Black Tulip, French author Alexandre Dumas (père) describes a competition, initiated by the Dutch city of Haarlem in the 1670s, in which 100,000 florins (150 florins being the average yearly income at the time) would be given to the first person who could grow a black tulip. Although Dumas's story is fictional, it is based on a real phenomenon that took place in the Netherlands in the early 17th century.
Between 1634 and 1637, the Netherlands (then called the United Provinces) saw the rise and fall of many fortunes due to an intense period of tulip trading. Now described as tulipomania, or simply tulip mania, it involved the wild overvaluation of certain types of tulip, leading to the eventual crash of the inflated market.
In Rare Form
First cultivated in the East, tulips were brought to Europe from the Ottoman Empire during the 16th century (the name tulip is derived from the Turkish word for turban). Soon after their introduction, tulips became popular in various countries, but nowhere so much as in the Netherlands. There are many theories as to why the Dutch developed such an avid interest in tulips; in his book The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan suggests that the bleakness of the Dutch landscape may be one reason colorful tulips were so quickly embraced. He observes that "what beauty there is in the Netherlands is largely the result of human effort…" making the cultivation of beautiful blooms an attractive pastime.
Another reason for their popularity was their relative rarity. While tulips can be grown simply from seed, there is no guarantee that the resulting flowers will resemble their parent plants at all. The only way to obtain a particularly prized bloom is to grow one from an offset, which Pollan describes as "the little, genetically identical bulblets" found at the base of a tulip bulb. The process of cultivating offsets was a lengthy one, adding to the scarcity of tulips. In addition, the most valued tulips of the time were ones said to be "broken," that is those tulips with bright flame or feather-like patterns on their petals. The most famous of this type of tulip was the Semper Augustus, a white flower marked by brilliant red strokes. These tulips produced fewer offsets, making them even rarer; although it was not known at the time, the "broken" effect was caused by a virus that weakened the plant.
Gone to Seed
The genesis of tulipomania is usually ascribed to the 1593 arrival in Leiden of Carolus Clusius, a plant collector and gardener. Bringing with him some tulip bulbs he had acquired while working as the director of the Imperial Botanical Garden in Vienna, Clusius proceeded to cultivate beautiful specimens from them, attracting attention from his new neighbors. However, Clusius was reluctant to part with his bulbs, refusing to sell to eager buyers. Frustrated by his refusal, thieves helped themselves to his garden, stealing many bulbs and selling the seeds they gained from them. These seeds were eventually distributed throughout all the Dutch territories, leading to the increased propagation and variation of tulips. Those lucky enough to grow a particularly beautiful bloom from seed could profit greatly from the sale of its offsets, making tulip cultivation an increasingly lucrative vocation.
As the taste for certain types of tulip became more focused, prices for the most valued bulbs rose dramatically among the upper classes. At first limited to collectors and the wealthy, the large amounts of money to be made soon inspired people of more limited means to sell everything they had to cash in on the trade. At the market's highest point, single bulbs sold for thousands of florins, the most famous being a Semper Augustus bulb that sold for 6,000 florins (or 40 times the average yearly income).
As more people entered the trade, eventually the sale of real bulbs gave way to windhandel, or wind trade, meaning the future production of bulbs was bought and sold. This increasingly risky venture couldn't last. The tulip bubble burst in February 1637 when the fear of oversupply and dramatic price increases in early 1637 caused prices to drop precipitously.
Back Petal
While the story of tulip mania often gets told as a cautionary tale and as an analogue to more modern forms of market inflation and decline, such as the dotcom bubble, historian Anne Goldgar thinks this description is overblown. In her book, Tulipmania: Money, Honor and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age, Goldgar finds that tulip speculation in reality was not as frenzied as the way it is commonly portrayed. She blames the writer Charles Mackay, whose book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds from 1841 used satirical songs from 1637 as the basis for his depiction of the craze for tulips, which had a tendency to exaggerate the facts of the situation. Far from being irrational, Goldgar argues that there were valid reasons for treating tulips as a valuable commodity, and that the subsequent rise and fall of the market was not as precipitous, and did not personally bankrupt, hordes of unlucky investors.
Although this volatility in the tulip market was unsettling at the time, out of that early trade came an enduring business for the Netherlands. Now the tulip is a beloved symbol of the country, and plays an important role in economic and cultural activities. It seems unlikely that anyone at the time the tulip came to the Netherlands could have predicted the enormous effect this flower would have over a nation's history and economy. It is a vivid reminder that when human nature meets Mother Nature, interesting results are sure to follow.
Note: This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared on Interesting Thing of the Day on April 6, 2007.
Image credit: Alice Achterhof alicegrace [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons
Author: Morgen Jahnke
5 Questions Every Cat or Dog Owner Should Ask Their Vet
Bring this list of questions to ask your vet at your next appointment.
How to keep divorce out of court? (Part 2)
Sarah Snow, Partner at our London Victoria office is back on the blog to look at how arbitration and negotiation can help you keep your divorce out of court.
I pick this article back-up with a look at arbitration, the closest parties will come to the court process without having to go to court. It is a form of dispute resolution that takes place out of the courtroom. Both parties will appoint a suitability trained and qualified arbitrator, their decision is final and binding upon the parties.
The benefits of arbitration are that parties are able to resolve disputes in a less formal setting. The process is often quicker than court proceedings as parties are not dependant on the court listing and scheduling of hearings, which can often take several months if a court is particularly busy. Parties can also be ensured of continuity, instructing the same arbitrator throughout the process, opposed to court proceedings where you may see a different judge at each hearing. However, as with collaborative law, there is no power to compel disclosure and may not be suitable if one half of the couple is hiding assets although the arbitrator can draw adverse findings if satisfied that something has not been disclosed and can also award costs. Indeed, engaging in arbitration is something that both parties must be willing to do.
This is a viable alternative dispute to the court process for divorcing couples and can address wide ranging issues such as determining an entire financial award down to a narrow issue such as how to deal with a pension. There are also arbitrators who specialise in determining arrangements for children.
It may feel like you are "going private" as you do pay the costs of the arbitrator as well as the costs of your lawyer but you may feel this is worth it to get a final decision more quickly, in a more comfortable environment than the court and by an arbitrator who you can be confident is a specialist in family law rather than a Judge who may have been a lawyer who specialised in a different area of law. The other benefit to an arbitration process is that it is completely confidential so that there are no risks of the press attending your hearing as they sometimes can do if your case is in court.
The flexibility and the fact that you will get a final decision more quickly can make arbitration more cost-effective than court.
Negotiations via solicitors
This is probably the most common way in which most matters are resolved. Lawyers are both specialists in the law and will know what the likely outcomes might be, and they will also be experts in negotiation and how to present your case in the best possible way. The process essentially involves solicitors negotiating on divorcing parties' behalf. If the matter concerns financial arrangements, then there needs to be an exchange of financial disclosure so that there is a full understanding of what resources are available. Negotiation can then take place over correspondence, by telephone discussion or sometimes via what is known as a roundtable meeting where both parties and their lawyers are present.
However, if negotiations break down then court or arbitration may be the only alternatives available. It is important therefore that negotiations do not continue for too long if it is evident that an agreement cannot be reached because if you commence either the court or arbitration options too late this will increase the costs beyond those originally anticipated. However, with arbitration it may be that the negotiations have narrowed down the issues to only a few points, which the arbitrator can be asked to decide upon therefore saving the costs of arguing about everything. It is important to ensure that a timetable for disclosure and negotiations is set out by the parties' solicitors from the start to ensure that matters are not allowed to drift over many months without moving forward.
Whichever way you go
Ultimately it is important to note that whichever chosen approach to resolving matters voluntarily and without court proceedings, both parties must be motivated by a shared desire to be open, transparent, pragmatic and compromising.
Without such an approach any method of Alternative Dispute Resolution is unlikely to be successful. In conclusion, I revert to the age-old adage delivered to many clients by their solicitors, "it is often better to have an agreement you can both live with, rather than an order imposed on you by the court which neither of you is happy with".
For more advice on how to keep your divorce out of court you can contact our Client Care Team here or at the number below.
You can read part 1 here.
The post How to keep divorce out of court? (Part 2) appeared first on Stowe Family Law.
Author: Sarah Snow
Do we need a domestic abuse register?
A headline on BBC News before Easter read: "Mother calls for 'domestic abuse register'". The headline refers to the mother of Jayden Parkinson, the teenager who was brutally murdered by her former boyfriend, Ben Blakeley. Blakeley was found guilty of strangling 17 year old Jayden, who was expecting his child, and burying her body in his uncle's grave. He is currently serving a life sentence, with a minimum term of twenty years.
Crucially, it came to light in the course of the murder trial that Blakeley had a history of violence towards previous partners. Three former girlfriends gave evidence against him, including one who said he had pushed her down the stairs when she was seven months pregnant.
Now Jayden's mother is calling for a register to be kept "to keep track of the activities of perpetrators of domestic abuse, violence and stalking" (according to the BBC report). She is quoted as saying of Jayden: "She'd be here now, because for all the agencies at the point when Jayden went missing, to them she was a pain-in-the-butt teenager… and if that register had been here, and they'd all looked at it, they'd have seen how vulnerable she was."
But what exactly would such a register contain, and do we need it? Or to put it another way, would such a register make a difference?
Now, this is a complex issue, and I could not possibly do justice to it in one short blog post. However, think it is worthwhile to set out a few initial thoughts.
The first question that comes to mind is: Who goes on the register? Is it just those who are convicted of a criminal offence related to domestic abuse? Or would those against whom a family court has made a domestic abuse injunction also be included? If the latter, then two further thoughts come to mind.
Firstly, that many allegations made in the family courts are of a quite 'low-level' nature – would all of these trigger inclusion on the register? Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not trivialising domestic abuse. There is no excuse for any of it, but it seems rather extreme to put someone whose actions were not particularly serious on a register. Remember, being on such a register could seriously affect the liberty of that person.
The second, linked, point is that this could lead to an awful lot of people going on to the register. That could lead to one of two effects, both of which would 'water down' the idea: that it is impossible to gauge the risk posed by any particular person on the register, or that everyone on the register is considered to be 'high risk', even when many of them are not.
And can a perpetrator ever get their name off the register? As I said, being on the register would be a serious matter. Save in the most serious of cases it would surely be unfair to be on it automatically for life, but what must the perpetrator do to show that they are no longer a risk? Or would they simply come off it after a set period of time, as with rehabilitation of offenders? These are questions that would have to be answered.
But the biggest question is the one I've already asked: would such a register make a difference?
As suggested by Jayden's mother, the register could be checked by any agencies involved in the welfare of a vulnerable person. I suppose those agencies could have procedures in place to ensure that the register is checked, when appropriate. However, such cases will surely be comparatively rare. Presumably, the register could be viewed by any member of the public who is concerned about a (potential) partner. However, realistically, how many people entering into a relationship will do this? If you have any concerns about a partner, you will act on those concerns (if you are able to), without needing to look at a register.
And lastly there are already two mechanisms in place which have a similar effect to such a register, both of which were mentioned in the BBC article. Firstly, convicted domestic abusers and stalkers are already captured on the Police National Computer (although that cannot of course be access by the general public), and secondly, we already have the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme, better known as 'Clare's Law', which allows the police to disclose information on request about a person's domestic abuse history. I'm not sure how much a domestic abuse register would add to this.
Nobody knows for certain whether Jayden would still have been alive today if there had been a register. Certainly, the possibility that she could be makes a powerful argument in favour. However, there are clearly some serious questions to be answered before a register is put in place.
The post Do we need a domestic abuse register? appeared first on Stowe Family Law.
Author: John Bolch
The lazy way to make a perfect cup of coffee
There are those who believe half the pleasure of a great cup of coffee comes from the ritual of making it. The details of the ritual vary from person to person and place to place, but the desired effect is the same: a perfect cup of hot, rich, fresh coffee. "Perfect," of course, is quite subjective. Among people who take coffee seriously, there is a great deal of disagreement as to what types of bean, roast, and grind make the best coffee, how concentrated the grounds should be, whether the coffee should be infused into the water by dripping, steeping, or steaming, and many other details. Regardless of the precise outcome, however, coffee purists often insist that if you want coffee done right, you must make it by hand, with a great deal of care and attention to detail.
I certainly count myself among those who cherish a perfect cup of coffee. And yet, I've never been much for ritual. All things being equal, I'd prefer to have my coffee with as little effort as possible, but I draw the line at those trendy machines with the prefilled plastic pods (you know, Keurig K-Cups, Nespresso, and the like)—the beans are not freshly ground, there's too much waste, it's too expensive per cup, and you have too little control over the final product. Fortunately, technology allows me to have my café and drink it too, thanks to a breed of coffee maker known as a superautomatic.
Coffee Making 101
First, a few background concepts about coffee brewing. The standard American method for making coffee is to allow hot water to drip through a filter full of ground beans and then into a carafe sitting on a hot plate. You'll get eight or ten cups of coffee this way in about five minutes. While operating the coffee maker itself is usually just a matter of flipping a switch, that doesn't include measuring and pouring the water, inserting the filter, measuring the ground coffee, or disposing of the used grounds. (Add another step or two if you grind your own coffee beans—which you should.) The end result is a relatively dilute coffee whose taste rapidly deteriorates as it ages and evaporates. The person who drinks the first cup often has a much better experience than the one who drinks the last cup.
By contrast, espresso is made one or two cups at a time by forcing steam into a much finer grind of coffee and through a metal filter that allows slightly larger particles of grounds through than a paper filter would. This normally results in a stronger coffee, mainly because less water is used; if you kept forcing steam through the grounds for a longer period of time, the coffee would become increasingly weak, eventually reaching the strength most North Americans consider normal. (Think of the Americano, which is just espresso diluted with hot water.) Making espresso (and its milk-added cousins cappuccino and latte) is normally an exacting manual procedure, but one that results in a fresher cup because the coffee never sits around in a carafe becoming bitter.
I'll Have a Digital Cappuccino
A superautomatic coffee machine uses the pressurized steam method of coffee production to make a single cup of coffee at a time, but without any of the manual steps. With the press of a single button, the machine grinds beans stored in an internal hopper; tamps them down into the filter assembly; squirts steam through them into your cup, then ejects the used grounds into a holding bin. The whole process takes about a minute, and it produces a wonderfully rich, creamy coffee. Most superautomatics allow you to adjust a wide variety of settings, such as the coarseness of the grind, the amount of ground coffee per cup, and the volume and temperature of the coffee. With various combinations of settings, you can get a tiny cup of ultra-concentrated espresso, a large mug of American-style coffee, or anything in between. (My personal preference is Swiss-style café crema, which is stronger than American but weaker than espresso, served in a demitasse cup with a golden foamy finish.)
My wife's favorite feature of our first superautomatic was its automatic milk frother. This is not simply a wand that squirts steam into a container of milk (though you can do that too if you want). Instead, you drop a small hose into a container of milk, press a button, and the machine sucks in the cold milk and delivers hot frothed milk from a nozzle right into your coffee cup. The frother enabled us to make an excellent cappuccino by pressing exactly two buttons. (Due to reasons, our current superautomatic lacks a frother, but we'll think about that again the next time we're in the market for a new model.) Depending on the model and manufacturer, superautomatics have a variety of additional features. Some have a built-in cup warmer, an internal water filtering system, or a second steam pump so that they can brew coffee and steam milk at the same time. Programmable digital models feature an alphanumeric display and one-touch access to popular features, to save your delicate fingers from having to physically move levers or knobs to adjust settings.
You Can Put a Price on True Happiness
Superautomatics don't come cheap. A good mid-range model, with a digital display and most of the bells and whistles, will run in the neighborhood of US$1,500. A high-end consumer machine can go for as much as $6,000 (which, by the way, is a bargain compared to commercial models); on the other end of the spectrum, if you're willing to forgo a few of the more esoteric frills, you can find a good basic unit for as little as $500. Unsurprisingly, superautomatics are a frequent cause of buyer's remorse, which means some good bargains on lightly used machines can often be found on eBay or at dealers with money-back guarantees.
The best-known manufacturers of superautomatic coffee machines are Saeco, Jura, De'Longhi, and Miele, all of which offer a wide selection of models in various price ranges. However, don't expect to find a great selection of such machines on display at your local Wal-Mart. High-end kitchen stores like Sur la Table and Williams-Sonoma carry superautomatics; apart from that, your best bet is usually an online retailer (such as Seattle Coffee Gear) with a good return policy. Also be prepared to get picky when it comes to coffee beans. Shiny, oily beans are to be avoided; a dark but dry bean such as Illy will make your superautomatic purr.
I Love the Java Jive and It Loves Me
You may be thinking: My generic $25 drip coffee maker works just fine. Why should I spend such an outrageous amount of money on a fancy coffee machine? Sure, the coffee from these machines may be excellent, but is it really worth the difference in price? Speaking for myself, the answer is yes. The combination of outstanding coffee and one-button convenience is worth quite a lot to me, and I've never regretted buying either of the two superautomatic coffee machines I've owned. Needless to say, superautomatics are not for everyone. If you don't drink much coffee or can't tell the difference between instant and fresh-brewed, a superautomatic is a frivolous investment. On the other hand, if you are—or aspire to be—a coffee connoisseur, this marvel of engineering may lead you to wonder what you ever found so endearing about your beloved French press or copper coffee pot.
Since I bought my first superautomatic, my contributions to the Starbucks empire have fallen off dramatically. My kitchen may not have quite the ambiance of a local coffee shop, but the wireless network is faster and the coffee is better. That digital biscotti maker is still a dream, but I always know where to get a good cup of Joe.
Note: This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared on Interesting Thing of the Day on April 8, 2003, and again in a slightly revised form on June 7, 2004.
Image credit: De'Longhi Deutschland GmbH [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Author: Joe Kissell
Take Control of Your Browser
For most of us, the one app we couldn't possibly live without is a web browser. You can do almost anything in a browser these days…but are you browsing with one hand tied behind your back? It's easy to get into inefficient browsing habits, but you might be surprised at what a little know-how about this everyday tool can do for your efficiency and happiness.
Take Control of Your Browser, by veteran tech writer Robyn Weisman, helps you discover your browser's hidden talents, increase browsing speed, solve many common problems, and configure settings and extensions for maximum efficiency. If you're troubled by ads, frustrated by ineffective searches, or confused by inscrutable error messages, this book will help you overcome your problems. Beginners will find lots of practical how-to advice, and even power users will learn tips and tricks for better browsing.
This book, like all Take Control titles, comes as an ebook, and you can download any combination of formats—PDF, EPUB, and/or Kindle's Mobipocket format—so you can read it on pretty much any computer, smartphone, tablet, or ebook reader. The cover price is $14.99, but as an Interesting Thing of the Day reader, you can buy it this week for 30% off, or just $10.49.
Today's article was going to be a pretty straightforward technological exposition. I was going to describe a procedure that can improve hearing in ways that conventional hearing aids cannot, mention some of the limitations and risks involved, and pretty much leave it at that. Then I got an email from a friend wondering if I was planning to cover the political issues cochlear implants raise for the Deaf community. Um…political issues? I hadn't known there were any. But after a bit of research, I discovered that the controversy surrounding this procedure is at least as interesting as the procedure itself, which has been called everything from a miracle cure to genocide.
First, a bit of background. There are many different types and causes of deafness. Some kinds of hearing loss can be compensated for very adequately with just a bit of amplification—namely, a hearing aid. However, if there is a defect or damage in the inner ear, a hearing aid may do no good. Our perception of sound results from the vibrations of tiny hairs lining the cochlea, a spiral, fluid-filled organ in the inner ear. When the hairs move, the hair cells convert the movement into nerve impulses, which are then sent to the brain for decoding. If the vibrations never reach the cochlea, or if the hair cells themselves are damaged, no neural stimulation occurs and deafness results.
However, if most of the underlying nerve fibers themselves (and the neural pathways to the brain) are intact, they can be stimulated electrically, producing a sensation interpreted by the brain as sound. A cochlear implant places a series of electrodes inside the cochlea to do just that; a wire connects these electrodes to a small receiver with its antenna placed under the skin. Outside the skin, a device that looks somewhat like a hearing aid picks up sounds with a microphone, digitizes them in such a way that they produce meaningful signals for the electrodes, and transmits them via radio waves to the receiver. The net result is the perception of sounds picked up by the microphone, but because this apparatus completely bypasses the eardrum and middle ear, it's really an artificial ear rather than a hearing aid. The technology was developed by Dr. Graeme Clark at the University of Melbourne in the 1960s and 1970s; the first implant was performed in 1978.
Although any number of technological innovations have occurred in the decades since, cochlear implants are still by no means perfect. They vary greatly in their effectiveness, depending on a large number of variables. And the effect they produce, while auditory in nature, is not identical to what would be experienced with a fully functional ear. In addition, patients with cochlear implants require months or years of training to associate their new perceptions with sounds as they are usually known. In the most successful cases, implant recipients can eventually understand someone talking on the phone—but there is no guarantee of that level of hearing. Still, tens of thousands of people around the world have received the implants, and the procedure is rapidly gaining in popularity.
You Will All Be Assimilated
To a hearing person such as myself, all this sounds very rosy and optimistic. Of course, the surgery is rather delicate and carries with it the usual risks associated with putting holes in one's head; plus, the cost of the procedure and rehabilitative therapy is quite high. But these are not the primary concerns of the Deaf community. Although the controversy has diminished greatly in recent years, cochlear implants—particularly for children—were strongly opposed by many deaf people for some time because of a fear that they would destroy the Deaf culture in general and the use of sign language in particular.
On the surface, this argument may seem sort of silly to hearing persons. But the Deaf community has a unique culture and language that they rightly consider quite valuable; the thought of losing such a culture to technology is understandably offensive. One of the key beliefs of the Deaf community is that deafness is simply another perfectly valid way of life, not a problem that needs to be fixed. So the intimation that deafness is a "disease" for which cochlear implants are a "cure" smacks of assimilationism: "You must all be like us." (The 2000 documentary film Sound and Fury examines the controversy over cochlear implants in detail as it follows members of two families through their decisions about whether or not to undergo the procedure.)
Even detractors of cochlear implants allow that this must be an individual decision, and that implants may be a reasonable choice for people who have lost hearing later in life (and who therefore may not have integrated themselves into the Deaf community). But when it comes to implants for children, the story is different. If a deaf child does not receive an implant, he or she is likely to learn sign language easily and adopt the Deaf culture. With an implant, the child is more likely to be treated as a hearing child. However, the imperfect nature of "hearing" provided by the implants may make it difficult to learn spoken English; meanwhile, because the parents have little incentive to raise the child as a deaf person, the child may never learn sign language. The result is that the child has less ability to communicate than if the implant had not been performed. In addition, if the child has partial hearing, the implant may eliminate any possibility of later using a conventional hearing aid by impeding normal functioning of the cochlea.
On the whole, decades of experience with cochlear implants in thousands of children have not borne out these worries, so resistance to implants in children is decreasing somewhat. Conventional wisdom holds that someone with a cochlear implant is still deaf, and many people with implants—children and adults alike—continue to learn and use sign language, participating actively in the Deaf culture. If cochlear implants, in a roundabout way, can promote both bilingualism and biculturalism, that may be their most compelling advantage.
Note: This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared on Interesting Thing of the Day on October 14, 2004.
Image credit: BruceBlaus [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons
That Bagel Recipe, Morality, and Accreditation
Having been accused by some people of being immoral and unethical, I feel the need to defend myself.
As the author of a few published cookbooks who had recipes stolen and put in other published cookbooks without the slightest accreditation myself, I know just how awful that is. When I've created original content, figuring out some awesome things by myself and had my content literally copied
Author: Penniless Parenting
Quantized Time
Split-second thinking
The whole notion of time fascinates me endlessly—speaking metaphorically, of course. Numerous articles here at Interesting Thing of the Day have involved time or timekeeping in one form or another. In one of these articles, about analog clocks, I made what I thought was a commonsense and uncontroversial remark:
…time itself is continuous, not an infinite series of discrete steps…. Units like seconds, minutes, and hours are just a convenient, arbitrary fiction, after all—they don't represent anything objectively real in the world.
A reader wrote in to suggest that I wasn't up to date on my quantum physics, according to some theories of which time is indeed quantized, or fundamentally composed of very tiny but indivisible units.
At first, I had a hard time getting my head around this notion, and after considerable research…I still have a hard time getting my head around this notion. Although I try to keep generally abreast of the latest developments in the world of science, I can't claim to do anything more than dabble in theoretical physics, and complex equations simply make my eyes glaze over. Nevertheless, it's not only true that many scientists take the notion of quantized time for granted, there was also a fairly major uproar in the early 2000s when a young upstart from New Zealand published a paper that dared to challenge this notion with a theory that says, in effect, that there's no such thing as an indivisible moment in time.
To understand what it would mean for time to be quantized, think of a unit of time, such as a second. You can divide that in half, getting two shorter periods of a half-second each. You can go much smaller, too, dividing a second into a thousand parts called milliseconds, a million parts called microseconds, a billion parts called nanoseconds, a trillion parts called picoseconds, and so on. A trillionth of a second is, to me, such an unimaginably short period of time that I'd be happy to consider it, for all practical purposes, indivisible—an "atom" of time, as it were. But that's nothing. A trillionth of a second is a decimal point, 12 zeroes, and a 1. Some scientists say that meaningful distinctions in time can be made down to 10–44 second, or 44 zeroes after the decimal point before you reach that 1. But the question is: how low can you go? Is there some point, some number of zeroes, beyond which time cannot be divided any further?
One of the fundamental notions of calculus, and of physics, is that one can determine a moving object's exact position at some instant in time. That there should be such a thing as an "instant" is taken as a given. An instant effectively doesn't have duration; that would imply that a moving object changes its position between the start of that instant and its end—in other words, that its position can't be known precisely. However, seemingly it can, or at least that operational assumption has served calculus well all these centuries. But is the notion of an instant merely a convenient fiction, or does it in some sense represent reality?
Among scientists studying quantum theory, and particularly among those working on the quixotic task of unifying general relativity with quantum physics, the question of whether time is truly continuous or not is of particular interest. Some scientists say that, as far as general relativity goes, time is continuous, but that in order to create a Grand Unified Theory, we might have to accept that it can be treated as a succession of temporal quanta (or chronons), in much the same way that light can be treated as either a wave or a particle. Others say that time is not merely a fourth dimension, but is itself three-dimensional, so from our point of view time is continuous, but from a point of view that encompasses time's other dimensions, it's quantized.
But all kinds of mysterious things happen in the quantum realm. What about the macro world we're all familiar with?
Time for a Kiwi
In 2003, a then-27-year-old student from New Zealand named Peter Lynds published a paper in the peer-reviewed journal Foundations of Physics Letters that caused a great deal of controversy. Lynds claimed, essentially, that the whole notion of an instant is flawed, because if there were such a thing, a moving object measured and observed at that instant would appear to be static, and thus indistinguishable from a genuinely static object measured at that same instant. Since the two measurements clearly represent objects with different states, Lynds argued, it must be the case that there really aren't any instants, only intervals (though those intervals might be very tiny). If true, this means that a moving object's position can only ever be approximated—whether at the macro level or at the quantum level. And for this very reason, most of Zeno's paradoxes turn out not to be paradoxical after all. Lynds went on to claim that time doesn't flow because flow presumes an ongoing series of instants, that there is no "now" as such, and that our perception of time is just an odd consequence of the way our brains are wired.
The term "snapshot" is frequently used to describe the instant of time at which an object's position might be determined, but I think it actually helps to make Lynds's point. If you're taking a picture of something that's moving, you need a fast shutter speed to "freeze" the action, and the faster your subject is moving, the faster the shutter speed has to be. But if you set your shutter to, say, 1/4000 of a second and the photograph shows an arrow in mid-flight, with no blurring to suggest motion, that still doesn't mean the arrow didn't cover any distance during that tiny portion of a second the shutter was open. Of course it did. It's just that the distance was sufficiently small, given the resolution of the camera and the human eye, to create the illusion of being frozen. So even if your hypothetical "shutter speed" is a zillionth of a second long, so that your measurement appears to give an exact, fixed location, that, too, is merely an illusion. The object in fact occupies more than one position during that time. Nothing mysterious about that at all.
Instant Controversy
When I heard Lynds's idea, I thought it made perfectly good sense, and what I couldn't comprehend was how scientists claimed, with considerable fervor, that they either couldn't understand it or thought it was wrong-headed. I confess that I have not followed the debate about Lynds's paper very closely in the years since its publication, and that I can understand only part of what I've read. However, it seems to me that many criticisms tend to mention either or both of two facts. First, critics note that Lynds was uncredentialed—he only had six months of university study at the time, so who was he to gainsay PhDs with years of experience? And second, if he were correct, that would mean that calculus as we know it must be essentially wrong or at least incomplete. And we all know it's right. Right?
As to the matter of Lynds's erstwhile lack of an advanced degree, all I have to say is: if he's correct, that doesn't matter, and those who say otherwise take themselves, and their formal education, way too seriously. As for the supposed assault on calculus, well, Lynds implies that calculus is not exactly wrong so much as very slightly inaccurate. Calculus as it stands appears to be right, but then, so are Newton's laws of physics. Except they aren't always: Newtonian physics breaks down both at the quantum level and when objects approach the speed of light. It seems to me—and again, I'm speaking as a nonmathematician here—that the very same thing could be true in this case. Calculus can be right at one level, and the absence of quantized time can be right at another level.
Of course, those are not the only criticisms, and the debate between Lynds's supporters and detractors has gone through so many rounds of rebuttals and rejoinders that I can no longer keep track of who thinks what. But on the whole, the debate has made me feel even more secure in my personal, nonscientific belief that time is continuous, and I'm not going to doubt that for one instant.
Note: This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared on Interesting Thing of the Day on July 21, 2006.
Image credit: Illymarry [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Divorce tips to help you avoid future complications
Divorce is a complex, emotionally charged process, and it is not always easy to make smart choices during this time. When both parties are amicable and resolved to work together on a reasonable, mutually beneficial agreement, it can make the process smoother and less stressful, but it is still necessary to work to protect your rights. Being prepared for what is ahead can make it easier to complete your divorce.
Most people spend several thousand dollars during the divorce process, even in non-litigious divorces. If you are concerned about finances, you can take steps that will reduce your costs and save time. In your effort to do this, you may find that you can reduce your divorce-related stress and anxiety as well.
Saving time and money
When you think about divorce, you may picture scenes from movies where two opposing parties are shouting at each other across a family courtroom. This typically is not reality, and it certainly does not have to be what your divorce looks like. Many divorces settle out of court, and this can be a way that both parties can save money. You may be able to negotiate a fair settlement through mediation, negotiations and other means without ever stepping foot inside a courtroom.
Avoiding litigation is one way to keep your divorce costs down, but you could take advantage of other options as well. Consider the following:
Seek counseling, or work with a therapist. When you can deal with your feelings in a healthy way, you will be less likely to find yourself involved in unnecessary, and costly, emotionally-motivated disputes.
Be honest and upfront about all financial matters. By disclosing everything now, you will be less likely to end up back in court battling over assets and money down the road.
Completing your divorce faster is not always better. Take your time to research and explore all options, which could lead to better resolutions and a reduced chance of future disputes.
These are just a few of the ways that you may be able to streamline your divorce and save money. Fear and sadness are normal emotions to have during this process, but they do not have to be the reason why or influence how you make important decisions that will impact your future.
A worthwhile expense
You may be concerned about saving money during your divorce, but it is always worthwhile to seek the counsel of an experienced Texas divorce attorney. The terms of your settlement will affect you for years or even decades, and your future is worth protecting. Having knowledgeable guidance is invaluable, and it is worth it for the sake of securing a strong post-divorce future.
Author: On behalf of Katie L. Lewis of Katie L. Lewis, P.C. Family Law
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