Sunday
Golden Ratio Discovered in Quantum World: Hidden Symmetry Observed for the First Time in Solid State Matter
From: sciencedaily.com
Researchers from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie (HZB), in cooperation with colleagues from Oxford and Bristol Universities, as well as the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK, have for the first time observed a nanoscale symmetry hidden in solid state matter. They have measured the signatures of a symmetry showing the same attributes as the golden ratio famous from art and architecture.
The research team is publishing these findings in the Jan. 8, 2010 issue of the journal Science.
The magnetic field is used to tune the chains of spins to a quantum critical state. The resonant modes (“notes”) are detected by scattering neutrons. These scatter with the characteristic frequencies of the spin chains. (Credit: Image courtesy of Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres)
On the atomic scale particles do not behave as we know it in the macro-atomic world. New properties emerge which are the result of an effect known as the Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. In order to study these nanoscale quantum effects the researchers have focused on the magnetic material cobalt niobate. It consists of linked magnetic atoms, which form chains just like a very thin bar magnet, but only one atom wide and are a useful model for describing ferromagnetism on the nanoscale in solid state matter.
When applying a magnetic field at right angles to an aligned spin the magnetic chain will transform into a new state called quantum critical, which can be thought of as a quantum version of a fractal pattern. Prof. Alan Tennant, the leader of the Berlin group, explains "The system reaches a quantum uncertain -- or a Schrödinger cat state. This is what we did in our experiments with cobalt niobate. We have tuned the system exactly in order to turn it quantum critical."
By tuning the system and artificially introducing more quantum uncertainty the researchers observed that the chain of atoms acts like a nanoscale guitar string. Dr. Radu Coldea from Oxford University, who is the principal author of the paper and drove the international project from its inception a decade ago until the present, explains: "Here the tension comes from the interaction between spins causing them to magnetically resonate. For these interactions we found a series (scale) of resonant notes: The first two notes show a perfect relationship with each other. Their frequencies (pitch) are in the ratio of 1.618…, which is the golden ratio famous from art and architecture." Radu Coldea is convinced that this is no coincidence. "It reflects a beautiful property of the quantum system -- a hidden symmetry. Actually quite a special one called E8 by mathematicians, and this is its first observation in a material," he explains.
The observed resonant states in cobalt niobate are a dramatic laboratory illustration of the way in which mathematical theories developed for particle physics may find application in nanoscale science and ultimately in future technology. Prof. Tennant remarks on the perfect harmony found in quantum uncertainty instead of disorder. "Such discoveries are leading physicists to speculate that the quantum, atomic scale world may have its own underlying order. Similar surprises may await researchers in other materials in the quantum critical state."
The researchers achieved these results by using a special probe -- neutron scattering. It allows physicists to see the actual atomic scale vibrations of a system. Dr. Elisa Wheeler, who has worked at both Oxford University and Berlin on the project, explains "using neutron scattering gives us unrivalled insight into how different the quantum world can be from the every day."
However, "the conflicting difficulties of a highly complex neutron experiment integrated with low temperature equipment and precision high field apparatus make this a very challenging undertaking indeed." In order to achieve success "in such challenging experiments under extreme conditions" the HZB in Berlin has brought together world leaders in this field. By combining the special expertise in Berlin whilst taking advantage of the pulsed neutrons at ISIS, near Oxford, permitted a perfect combination of measurements to be made.
Source: sciencedaily.com
Thursday
2010: 7 Steps Out Of Addiction
I have worked in the addiction field for 40 years, since I began researching my book, Love and Addiction (1975), about addictive sex and love. I take a non-disease approach, since I find the idea that you are born to be a lifelong addict unhelpful.
I created the Life Process Program for the St. Gregory Retreat Center. Although we deal with substance addictions at St. Gregory, my model of addiction applies to all kinds - gambling, sex, binge eating and anorexia, et al.
Here are the seven elements to our recovery program, ones you can apply to whatever concerns you:
1. It's not the addiction, it's the rest of your life. You've been thinking about that damned addiction for decades, so more thought in that direction has limited value. What you need to think about is fulfillment in the rest of your life - including relationships, work and educational goals, community, life satisfaction. Then the addiction might not just melt away, but it will sure be easier to manage.
2. What do you value? Everyone has a reason to quit. You've thought about how your habit is hurting your health, your self-respect, your family, your career goals - pick one suit in that deck of cards and play it. Run through the connections between what you are doing and what really matters to you. Think of the smoker whose daughter says, "Why are you killing yourself daddy. Don't you love me?"
3. Get in with the in crowd. It is so obvious and it's been repeated so much - but I have to restate it. Hang out with people who behave the way you'd like to, and are the kind of person you'd like to be. If they don't want to spend all night smoking, drinking, and doing lord knows what - well, you'll have to learn to do the kinds of things your role models enjoy. Then, pretty soon, you're like them!
4. It works - I can control myself! Savor the rewards of your new behavior - your new self - the respect, the clean air, the free time, the productivity, the health - the happiness. You can do it - you've done it before, either with this addiction or some other. Pat yourself on the back - you're a mover and a shaker. Just look modest when people ask you how you quit, lost weight, or got going on that health regimen - nobody likes a braggart!
5. Engage your loved ones. It's a fine line between blaming others for - or worse, implicating them in - your addiction. But your life partner and others close to you are keys to recovery. Think about the ways they feed into your habits. Then think harder about how to ask for their help in reversing these patterns - remember, you're requesting help, not accusing them.
6. What's your plan? Being addicted is usually not planned, like those ads that mock the idea of kids saying they want to grow up to be alcoholics. So you have to plan your days, your career, your relationships. I know - you were Mr. or Ms. "What, me worry?" But look where that got you! You need a daily planner; you need a life plan.
7. Aim higher. When you think about an addictive habit, it's so puny, so trivial - feeding your urges, your face. Let's come up with something bigger to focus on. Politics? Poverty? Community? Religion? Art? Your own family and life goals? You tell me what you think is really worth devoting yourself to in life.
And, remember: nothing, nobody is perfect. If you count the people who never take another dance with their monkey - or at least sample some other intoxicant from the one they nailed themselves to a cross on - you don't even have to use all your fingers. The goal is to avoid relapsing into your former addict identity and lifestyle. You can always climb back up, even after you've descended a couple of steps. Just do it!
This is what we do at St. Gregory. Join us at home.
F--- This Sh--, I Quit.
I
f you're like most people, you treat quitting with the false solemnity of a funeral for an annoying family pet. You stifle any PEACE BEYOOOOTCHs that have been building up inside you for years, act a little sad and maybe say a few thoughtful parting words.
Other folks just can't resist expressing exactly how they feel with an ass-loaded roman candle. These people approach quitting a job like performance art, living the I'll show them dreams of frustrated employees everywhere, and occasionally showing us just how badly those dreams sometimes turn out ...
If we knew how to program video games, we would totally quit every job this way. We're talking an interactive resignation letter where you have to shove various office supplies into your boss's ass to escape a cubicle dungeon full of cankle-shoed fat women and terrifyingly greasy IT guys. We almost want to learn how to program, get a job doing it and then quit that job, just so we can resign this way.
"And in the second level, I beat you both to death with the Pepsi machine."
A designer working at 2K Games said goodbye with a custom Mario game that you can actually play here, complete with the star power song and "I QUIT!" dancing on the screen whenever you grab a mushroom. Its quasi-respectful tone and brain-punching awesomeness aside, we can't help but suggest that he leave it off the next portfolio he turns in to a game developer, unless he's looking to capture the record for world's fastest job interview.
"Well, I can see from your portfolio that you're a bombastic asshole. Get the fuck out of my office."
A more low-key and slightly poignant example was created by an Ubisoft programmer, depicting the company in a film noir adventure setting, except instead of guns and gin joints it's full of a bunch of rail-thin geeks who can't decide what they want to do with their lives. Emo noir, we suppose.
But nothing quite tops the unnamed techie who decided to leave behind a Mac alert explaining just how he felt about his temporary employers:
The "I've Moved Back Into My Mom's House" button is noticeably missing.
What baffles us about this is how he seems to be trying to set an ultimatum for his employers to treat him better. He says himself that neither the company nor rest of the staff will be affected by his quitting, so his work couldn't have been that great to begin with. Then he accuses his boss of being a screw up, but takes the time to leave a little box in case they want to hire him back. No boss ever in the history of anything would consider clicking on that damn thing. Mainly because you'd have to assume all three buttons lead to old man porn.
Sometimes the best way to say "I'm leaving" is by waving around a naked penis. Or by filming a video using the Star Wars crawl to describe how you would have sex with everyone in the office, and then waving around your naked penis obscured by a clown face. OK, that's never the best way to say anything, but don't tell that to this guy:
Our big question is, why bother covering up? He's gone this far to insult everyone, and yet chooses to censor his wang (in the creepiest way possible, we might add). Any of his intended targets still watching the video when Mr. Chuckles shows up had it coming--he flat-out announces he's going to be naked about a minute and a half beforehand.
Kevin Nalty, who used to be the consumer product director for Propecia at Merck Pharmaceuticals, used American Idol and his bare chest to leave his job in order to pursue an online video career. While Big Pharmaceutical to YouTube might sound like the worst career move ever, after viewing his resignation video, we have to think the US Health care system got the best of that transaction:
Well-liked members of the workforce tend to get a nice cake when they leave a job. Or, if you're like W. Neil Barrett, you bring in your own cake with a letter of resignation written across the frosting.
He's smiling because he's poking his dick through the bottom of the box.
Admittedly this is pretty clever, we're more on board with this cake, which sends a clear impossible to miss message:
Under no circumstances should you ever eat a cake that looks like this.
Well, not impossible to miss. Evidently, a guy known only as Patrick walked into a job he hated, dropped this bomb on his boss's desk, then took his paycheck and walked out. What's worse, his boss didn't understand what had happened, and had to have the whole exchange explained to him later by his remaining staff.
"I thought the cake was quitting!"
However, we feel that if you're going to quit your job, you might as well do it shitfaced with a bottle of Cheez Whiz, which is exactly what this guy thought. He showed up to work at a grocery store lit to the gills at 5AM, which many of you may recognize as being way before most people are even awake. After fighting with his coworkers and shouting some slurred expletives, he grabbed a bottle of the condiment and wrote "I Quit" on the storefront window, vanishing into the city like a drunken cheese-wielding Batman before the cops could show up and arrest him.
We can only imagine the awkward looks exchanged when he realized he still had to come back and pick up his last paycheck.
Singing a toe-tapping resignation to your boss like Jonathon Schaech in That Thing You Do is the perfect mix of douche and awesome, sort of like Sean Connery slapping you in the face with his dong.
While singing.
Unsurprisingly, we tend to see this happening most often with musicians, who by trade have been known to sing on certain occasions. Take The Cure, who won a contest to have their music published by a German label called Hansa Records. Confronted with a bunch of dark, complex songs that would later be beloved by generations of social misfits, Hansa went into full-on marketing panic and made the logical decision to try and turn them into a boy band.
Clearly, they are nothing of the sort.
That didn't quite work out, and after recording a bunch of tracks that Hansa refuses to release to this day, The Cure decided that they actually had a sense of humor buried beneath their tear-streaked mascara and recorded "Do The Hansa," an upbeat pop song loaded with ridiculous German gibberish, on their way out the door to embrace worldwide fame.
That's fairly gentle compared to the send-off Queen gave their former manager, Norman Sheffield. In the wake of Queen's unquestionable talent and immense mainstream appeal, Sheffield decided that he was responsible for all the success and was therefore entitled to all the money they made.
Fed up with his antics, Queen decided to quit the shit out of him and wrote a little ditty called "Death on Two Legs," in which they compare Sheffield to a leech, gloat about how successful they are and invite Sheffield to kill himself for being so terrible, an offer which he sadly didn't take them up on. The song sounds kind of like a gangsta rap beef, only nobody got shot.
Gangsta.
If you're going to quit, you might as well do it in front of a bunch of people so somebody can describe you in detail to the police. The below Moe's manager decided to dance to "Ice Ice Baby," a song that somehow expressed his desire to pursue better employment with lyrics like, "the girls were hot wearing less than bikinis," and "wax a chump like a candle."
It actually seems to be sort of entertaining until he rips open his shirt, at which point everyone in the dining room gets a little uncomfortable.
But the best part is, he doesn't clock out until afterward, which means he actually got paid for three minutes of poorly lip-syncing along with a bad song.
Then we have Inetta "The Mood Setta" Hinton, a DJ for an R&B and hip-hop station in Louisiana, who had an on-air meltdown, letting everyone know how much she hated her job. Probably because 16-year olds that sweep up popcorn and used condoms at the movie theater get paid more than she did. So she made a special announcement shitting on all her coworkers before literally declaring "I quit this bitch" and leaving the station, presumably to pursue the exciting career opportunities that await people unable to handle the demands of radio DJ-ing.
Twitter is great for getting your ass fired, but it's also an effective method of offering up a resignation letter in 140 characters or less. Just ask Paula Abdul, who bailed on American Idol, the first televised plague in human history, via a post on her Twitter account, which in keeping with both Paula and American Idol is the most professional thing to do, ever.
Even MC Skat Kat would've at least called.
But hands down the best Twitter quitter is probably Heidi Lunde, who was working for a Norwegian news site where she was told that she'd be responsible for all the user-generated content coming to the site, pretty much meaning she'd have to sort her way through a huge pile of bullshit every single day to find something worth publishing.
So Heidi tweeted she'd just cleaned out her desk and was ready for new challenges, which sounds pretty vague but in actuality she just meant she had moved all her things upstairs to start her new position. That's when her boss called and asked why she resigned over Twitter without telling him first.
A formal meeting was set up to discuss the incident, but her boss promptly blew it off and told Heidi that she needed to submit a formal resignation. Realizing that her job sucked and her boss was about as intelligent as a moldy pancake, she quit for real.
If you have access to a publisher, and the attention span to write a Fuck You that's a few million characters longer than the 140 characters allowed by Twitter. Writers have been insulting people for as long as anyone has been able to read, but some are especially adept at uppercutting their resignations into the taints of their former employers. Take Ernest Hemingway. He was trapped in a contract with a man named Horace Liverwright and wanted out of it for serious artistic reasons, namely because another publisher was offering him a shitload more money and he resented being trapped by anything less than a fire-breathing dinosaur.
"I said 'shitload,' Shitload! Didn't you hear me?!"
So Hemingway wrote his first novel The Torrents of Spring, clocking in at under 100 pages and featuring two protagonists, one that bones a young Native American woman and runs off with her into the wilderness and another that takes mescaline and hallucinates that he's the President of Mexico. In other words, he wrote a book that was completely unpublishable by the standards of the time. But he did it on purpose.
"Let's see him sell this piece of shit."
Horace promptly released Hemingway from the contract, freeing him to pursue the more favorable publishing deal and go on to write several classics of American literature, buy a house in Key West and have sex with countless women. This he also did on purpose.
Wednesday
Availability and Willingness
...from the Field Training Realities blog ...................... (www.fieldcenter.org/realities)a tendency consistent with the Particle intention
that says:
“The world is cause, and I am effect.”
we can be available to things that we want as readily as we can
to things that we don’t want.
It’s a crucial point of theorythis element of availability,
we enter the causal realm.
and it is willingness that creates.
In fact, his superiors are in the habit of talking down to him,
making jokes at his expense, etc.,
and his colleagues take from this permission to treat him similarly.
invariably he will tell you he does not, that he wants to be respected.
And yet, the situation persists.
as far as the power of consciousness to create is concerned,
it doesn’t matter in the least how much he wants the situation to change,
because desire is the essential beginning of practice,
but it is not the end.
He is available to it.
If he were not, he would walk away from it,
as there would be no belief,
no feature of his identity to hold him there.
—
in this case, to be and have
what he does not want to be and have.
And so, Field training would explain to him
that he is in a state of contradiction,
that he is counter-intending,
---
and that the result of this
is always some measure of suffering.
Shifting, then, requires the resolve, at the very least,to close the door of availability on conditions that bring us suffering,
but in truth, every intention, and this includes every counterintention,
is appropriated for some good reason.
even if the giving up has the aim of making us available to something better.
The required identity shift that is the heart and soul of deliberate creating
can’t happen, then, until a person is ready
to accept responsibility for divesting himself or herself
of the old payoff.
Facilitating is the process we have for supporting people as they approach, then move
...into that altered identity state.
We can learn a lot about our life—especially about experiences that seem to dog us,
chronic problems in health or love or finances or any other area,
by looking at those things to which we’ve made ourselves available.
One need not look any further than the idea of natural selection
to understand how this process is a creative one.
No one has the power to make us available to anything. No one commands our willingness. Even if it costs us our life, we remain sovereign.
Victor Frankl, the famous founder of logotherapy and concentration camp survivor,
said that during his time in the camps, he saw people on many occasions
walk over to the electrified fence and say “no.”
Who we are, even in the most extreme circumstances, is up to us,
and nothing can keep happening to us without our agreeing, wittingly or unwittingly,
to remain available to it.
So, asking, “What are the things to which I’m making myself available?”
---
is a potentially life-altering question.
And here is a most interesting way to ask the same question differently:
“Where have I been settling for too little?”
A single honest answer to this question can throw open the door to a better life, commensurate with our willingness to close the door on the old one.
http://www.fieldproject.net/realities/?s=field+theory
Deliberate Creation and "Goal-Setting" ... (Abraham-Hicks)
Sunday
Some Thoughts from Neville Goddard
I say imagination creates reality, and if this premise is true then imagination fulfills itself in what your life becomes. Although I have changed the words, what I am saying is not new. Scripture says it in this manner: "Whatsoever you desire, believe you have received it and you will." This statement goes back two thousand years, yet even before that Jeremiah tells of the same principle in his story of the potter and his clay.
But until imagination becomes a part of your normal, natural currency of thought, you will not act consciously. Like breathing, this awareness must become so much a part of you that you will not turn to the left or the right to praise or blame anyone. When you know this presence it will not matter if you started life behind the eight-ball, or in a palace; as a poor, or a rich child; you will realize that life is always externalizing what you are imagining.
Lacking the knowledge of this principle, you can reproduce your environment - be it pleasant or unpleasant - forever and ever, as you feed your imagination on what your senses dictate. But knowing this principle, you can ignore the present, and untethered by the so-called facts of life, you can imagine the present as you desire it to be and feed upon your desire, rather than its omission.
Now, imagination cannot be observed as we see objects in space, for imagination is their reality. Faucett gives the name, "God" to the cause of the universe, saying: "God, the creator, is like pure imagining in ourselves. He works in the depths of our soul underlying all of our faculties, including perception, and streams into our surface mind least disguised in the form of productive fancy."
Listen to your thoughts and you will hear God's words! A thought that is not felt produces nothing. But a thought producing motor elements reproduces itself! Catch God in a moment of a motor element such as anger, fear, or frustration, being congratulated or congratulating, and you will know what is going to happen in your world. Unless, of course you arrest your thoughts and revise them. Most of us, however, are not aware of what we are doing, so we do not observe the creator. But we can catch him as he streams into our surface mind least disguised in the form of productive fancy.
If, while riding the bus, driving the car, sitting at home, or standing at a bar, you hear a remark and react by moving on the inside, that remark will fulfill itself in what your life becomes. This principle sets you free, if you are willing to assume its responsibility.
But whether you assume it or not, you will fulfill your every motor element thought anyway. So in the end you will not sympathize or condemn, but simply tell those who may be going through an unpleasant experience of this principle, and - if they accept it - let the principle work in their lives. ...
Operating at the Level of Cause
There is no "secret" that will bring us to anything that we do not earn through the willingness to live up to the version of self to which that thing corresponds, and moreover, to live up to it for its own sake.
Conscious creating, it turns out, is an act of love, an act of giving the self to the ideal rather than trying to get things from the world.
We cannot escape the assumptions of our own consciousness.
When the creative moment is entered into lovingly rather than for some desired effect, then and only then are we operating at the level of cause. This means that it isn't enough for us to visualize and such.
We have to become the thing we want, until all experience of lack has vanished in the joy of our having come home to our ideal.
Then, as far as we're concerned, the world can come along or not.
And the one who practices this way will discover a great secret indeed.
Students have heard me say it repeatedly: “What we want also wants something of us.”
One of the main reasons that the New Age approach to consciousness-as-cause fails is that it overlooks the profound truth that we do not create out of what we want, what we visualize, what we affirm, but out of who we are.
It is one thing to want something; it may be quite another to be willing to live up to it.
And so, in Field practice, we begin by admitting whether or not we’re willing to be what the new identity requires.
To imagine that one can enjoy abundant supply while entertaining all manner of belief in lack is pure fantasy.
To think that one can conjure the perfect partner through this technique or that while yet being unwilling to be the perfect partner—that is a formula for disappointment.
So, we look away from manifestation.
We take our hands off it, as it were, and turn our attention solely to the question of identity, for out of the answer to this question issues the reality within which we find ourselves.
When we talk about the creative power of consciousness, of intention, of identity, we’re talking about our willingness to inhabit the identity that corresponds to the desired fulfillment.
It is, then, never about “stuff,” but solely about self.
Furthermore, to amount to anything, to move the levers of nonlocality, this willingness must be unconditional, wholehearted, undertaken for its own sake, and a requirement.
Along these lines, we say, “You can have anything you want, the moment you’re no longer willing to settle for less.”
So, for example, I can be in a loving, generous, deeply fulfilling relationship, but only by being willing to live up to the same standard by which I want to be treated, and only by being unwilling to accept lesser relationships.
It is axiomatic in Field practice, when we find ourselves “bilocated,” or facing contradictory versions of self, that “either version will cost us the other.”
And so, we have a choice to make. Field training allows us to make that choice deliberately, wittingly, consciously, with resolve—rather than unwittingly, out of habit, prompted by unexamined assumptions or old payoffs we’ve outgrown.
More than anything else, Field training presents a path through which we may become more deliberately the best version of self that we can imagine.
The promise of such alignment, as we call it, is rich beyond what we may have imagined.
Is it any wonder, that such a prize would only be offered to those who are willing to take it on as a requirement?
Responsibility
Living creatively depends on the willingness to take responsibility.
In fact, this is such an important feature of our practice that we go a step further: the responsibility we take must be radical.
This means that we’re willing to regard our consciousness as cause even in situations where the situation we’re facing appears to be caused by the will of others.
Now, some students have an intention that equates responsibility with blame.
This is something expected of very young children at a certain developmental stage, but it can hinder us greatly as adults, because it can deter us from willingly accepting the prerequisite of conscious creatorship.
A person may not realize that he or she intends such an equation, but it’s obvious in how he or she shows up in the world.
There’s always an excuse.
Someone else is always at fault.
There’s always a ready justification, a rationalization,
a fall guy.
Such an intention establishes us firmly as the effect of conditions, and how can we take up causal authority while we’re busy being the effect?
A great deal can be learned by pondering the notion of collusion.
The idea here is that nothing makes us a victim without our permission, without our tacit cooperation, and this is the theoretical foundation of radical responsibility.
A person may be in an abusive relationship with someone, be hurt repeatedly, and desperately desire a better situation.
Yet, the victim is not without responsibility, for he or she stays there, tolerates it, participates in it, and to this extent, gives it a green light.
Remember that it isn’t desire that creates our reality but willingness.
As long as we’re willing to have or be less than the good we want, that willingness sets the bar of our suffering.
But once we put the universe on notice that “I am this, and nothing less,” and our good becomes a requirement of our being, then nothing can stand between us and the greater good we desire.
“We can be whatever we want, the moment we’re unwilling to settle for less.”
This week, you may find it useful to look at any situation in which you feel stuck or are struggling, and ask yourself how you might be colluding in the matter to keep things exactly where they are.
Perhaps you’ll even explore the subtle way that you’ve been giving tacit permission to the very conditions you so want to see change.
If you do this even for a moment, you may see a new opportunity appear, a new door that you can open and walk through to a better reality.