A go at photography then.

 Calm after the storm.....recent visit to Porthmadog.

Retirement activities proposed by Gemini

 Here are some fun retirement projects:

* **Travel:** Explore new places, cultures, and cuisines.

* **Volunteer:** Give back to your community and help others.

* **Learn a new skill:** Take up a new hobby or learn a new language.

* **Start a business:** Turn your passion into a profitable venture.

* **Write a book:** Share your stories and experiences with the world.

* **Take up a sport:** Get active and stay healthy.

* **Spend time with family and friends:** Cherish your loved ones.

* **Relax and enjoy life:** Take some time for yourself to relax and recharge.

Well I can sign up to the last point for a while!

Paradoxically Olbers paradox

 

This is a typical photo of an Egyptian temple representation of the night sky. 

Whats so strange about it?

Given what I have seen in our recent visits to Egyptian temples and their ability to undertake detailed observations and then represent them in fine carvings and story telling, I find it strange in the extreme that the best  they could do with representation of the night sky is effectively a blanket of starfish like stars.

No constellations, no 'brighter' stars, no Moon? It's effectively a night sky completely full of stars. Wherever you look there is a star. Exactly what Olbers paradox is all about - why is the night sky dark - if, in an infinite universe filled with stars, why would you not see a star wherever you looked? Essentially the night sky would then be bright!

Of course we now have an explanation for the night sky being dark - see Wikipedia Olbers paradox, for a start. Short answer is a finite universe and red shifted star light because it is also expanding. Well at least thats what we think at the moment.

So maybe those 👽 weren't so clever after all.....or maybe they know something we don't!

Again, I thought that was going to be it on the Egyptian front, but looking at these night sky depictions has raised another issue.....

Ancient Egyptian quantum experimentation

Following on from the previous post on wave-particle duality in ancient Egypt, what about this one.

 Evidence of a Youngs slit experiment in the Dendera Temple of Hathor. The photo clearly illlustrates both the particle (triangles running down from the slit) and 'waves' (running up from slit and depicted as as ripples in a sea of stars). 

Why is all this physics in the Temple of Hathor? Well clearly she was also a physicist - doing wave-particle duality experiments, being the personification of the Milky Way and the 'Lady of the Stars'.

 

Well this is all food for thought. 

The Temple alone is phenominal and the artwork sublime but the level of language and story depiction is out of this world. Must be.....👽

I've just noticed something else of interest, thought this was going to be my final post on Ancient Egyptian physics, but I think there is something else......

Ancient Egyptian quantum physics

So I've now come across further evidence of Ancient Egyptian quantum physics. 

This is a picture from the rule of Akhenaten - check Wikipediea for his history, pretty bold moves. Anyway on top of moving the Ancient Egyptian capital and mandating the worship of only the Sun god, he also lay the foundations of wave-particle duality. 

[Which is the current explanation of the Youngs double slit experiment - again check Wikipedia for details - where a photon (or any particle for that  matter) also acts as a wave! It's like magic and nobody really knows how it works, even given all the fancy mathematics we have these days.]

Here is the Akhenaten evidence.....

The Sun's rays are now depicted as lines with a hand at the end. The 'particle' triangles have now gone. Clearly the hand is there so that it can represent a 'wave'. 

Hence, (along with previsous post's) it shows evidence of Solar radiation being recorded as both particles and waves..... 👽

This of course calls into doubt the previous neutrino explanation of the triangles. So back to the triangles representing photons me thinks.....more research needed.

Ancient Egyptian Particle Physics continued.

 Ok - feels like I'm heading down an ancient rabbit hole but I've been doing some extensive research (that's over my breakfast coffee) into neutrino hieroglyphs. I've come across this image - courtesy of the Metropolitan Meseum - hope that's OK. 

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/549700

Which shows an advance on the 3 neutrino view of the last post! I think this one is a bit later in time from 200BC ish. Clearly there was additional neutrino research undertaken and 5 types are now depicted as rays. 

Check out current particle physics searches for a 4th 'sterile' neutrino type here,

https://natsci.source.colostate.edu/is-there-a-fourth-neutrino-new-results-from-fermilab-say-no/

so, looks like we have a bit more work to do to uncover the other 2! Which will require changes to the 'standard model' - it's those 👽 again ;) 

It must be aliens.....

Ok - still fired up by from our recent trip to Egypt. How did they do all that stuff? The stonework alone is unbelievable. 

However, one thing in particular struck me - the hieroglyph of the Sun. Having spent a large part of my life studying the Sun (both academically and recreationally;) this image jumped out at me more than any of the others. 

Here it is...

So what made me so interested! 

Well, why are the Sun's rays drawn as rows of little triangles in 3 lines? If you ask someone to draw the Sun they will draw the rays as straight lines, not like a load of raindrops! Also why only 3 rays and not, as the emoji illustrates, 🌞 lots?

They are of course representing photons (or as Holly, one of our crew, pointed out, maybe neutrinos). Three rows representing photons (red, green, blue) or neutrinos (electron, muon, tau). Come to think of it I like the neutrino version better, much more elegant.

Anyway, something to think on. Has to be 👽....right?

Retirement activities - let me think.

 Well I gave up 'work' around 10 months ago - bit of a grey area on exact time. 

Felt a bit strage for a while but am now getting to grips with it. Difficulty is not having a routine to follow, so have invented a starter activity for most days - dog walking my son's dog! 

That at leats gets the day unerway. But I'm going to have to find some additonal activities, outside of all the travelling I've done. I do like travelling though. Especially now I have my free bus pass! 

I've been researching retirement books looking for inspiration. I could return to do some software programming of some sort but I can't raise enough energy to start. Probably means I need a change. Books say you have to keep your mind active. Books also say get a hobby. Unfortunately all my hobby ideas ended up sounding like work I'd done in the past, e.g. astronomy, programming and the like. Maybe I just don't have the imagination?

There is one thing worth putting on the list and that is, walking. I do like a good walk but not sure I'd fit into the ramblers association, me being a bit antisocial and all that! 

The activity list has started though, here we go;

1    Walking - lets see how that pans out, outside of dog walking that is.

2    Travelling - well I do like travelling outside of walking!

Will add to list as and when.....think 5 activities feels about right.

To brighten up this post here is a pic from our recent trip to Egypt - Abu Simbel, simply phenomenal.

Attempt at catching up

 Rest of 2022 activities

• Trip to Mardid and FOSSA to finalise the build of 10 SAIN units. 
• Attended Highways conference in Birmingham with Richard to try and scope out what others were doing on bridge structural health monitoring. Not a lot as it tuns out.
• Lots of trips to the static in Wales!
• Trips to London to investigate collaboration with a drone provider on bridge monitoring Aeongreen. No money though so it was back to DIY again.
• Attendance at the Glasgow Pocketcube workshop. Always a great bash put on by Alba Orbital. Some investigation into collaboration with Scotish remote monitoring outfit Krucial. Didn't come to anything.
• The issue with SAIN was, and still is to some extent, it needs an injection of money to the tune of £100k to take it to a production level. We (I) have already put that amount in through the consulting business. Didn't really want to go for VC money, probably a mistake, but hey, ho, such is life.

Then 2023

• Trip to London to discus SAIN with Jacobs engineering, David Bradley. Again no go, no money.
• Trip to Budapest
• Lots of trips to the static in Wales
• Bought new motorhome - Bessy!
• Trip to Costa Rica - volcanoe's the lot!
• Big trip to Scotland in Bessy to visit the Rasaay distillery and sign our barrel.
• Advisory business closed down completely!
• Trip to Tenerife - holiday - first time back in a long while!

Then 2024

• Fantastic trip to India - holiday.
• Trip to Berlin - holiday
• Lots of trips to the static in Wales
• Tenerife - again - holiday with Richard to celebrate final ending of Advisory business.
• Big trip to Costa Rica and Panama - holiday
• Lots of Bessy trips, Wales, Durham...big 1 month trip round France to visit friends!
• Brilliant trip to Egypt - holiday

Phew.....as you can see the work aspects have started to take a back seat to the holidays. Long may it continue. I will summarise the SAIN position at some point just to state where things ended up.

Dropped the ball

 Well the last couple of years have seen a few changes that have resulted in me dropping the ball on Fortran revival activity. Mostly good stuff, lots and lots of travel - need to summarise all that at some point. Retirement has kicked in fully! 

However starting to get a little restless, need to come up with some new projects now that I have all this time on my hands - also needs to be summarised at some point.