6th Annual East Coast Operator Algebra Symposium!!
Previous Lives
and Incarnations
As you can see, I was once an important person. But that was
many lives ago, in a galaxy far, far away. Now I'm just a mathematician
-- with two beautiful children and a wonderful wife:
My Coordinates and Contact Information:
320 McAllister Building
Department of Mathematics
Penn State University
University Park, PA 16802 Etats-Unis
nbrown@math.psu.edu
(814)863-9095 -- Office Phone
(814) 865-3735 -- Fax
Things
I Love:
Kids; all kids; especially the ones who
don't get enough love.
Fishing; drinking beer; smoking; swearing; being me.
Sex. (At least I think I used to love this...before I had kids. Now I'm too tired to remember).
Imagining the rolling eyes of pompous or pious visitors to my
homepage.
Saying stupid things I might later regret.
The example set by Ghandi and MLK; the Dalai Lama's writings; the
Sermon on the Mount; crushing Pharimentalists -- ouch, my Karma hurts.
A sunrise; a sunset; fog; thunderstorms; dew;
snow; forests; lakes; mountains; prairies; oceans; wind;
no wind; stars; space; the moon; Mother Nature, in all of Her
magnificent manifestations.
Using semicolons improperly;
Things
That Irk Me:
Light beer; light cigarettes; fat-free anything; low-sodium anything; you get the picture.
Vegetarians; the fact that I might evolve into a semi-vegetarian.
Arrogant professors; lying politicians; Fundamentalists
of ALL stripes; those who prey on the weakness, fear,
ignorance or prejudice of other humans; men who treat women badly;
women
who treat men badly; mean people; selfish people; fake people;
superficial people; yes, most people.
Men that don't drink, smoke and swear. (Note: I didn't write
`drink, smoke OR swear'!) Vices were invented for a
reason;
indulge your inner Neanderthal, it's okay!
Classical music; Top 40 countdowns; boy bands; girl bands (unless
they're REALLY hot, of course); when white guys like Vanilla
Ice
and K-Fed (who?) try to rap; when people deny the genius of Tupac,
Eminem and other angry poets -- Mosh!!
A Quote From Somebody:
"I bemoan being a beast,
driven by carnal desires. Until I get hungry. Like now."
--Roccodinuovo
A Beast Quote From Somebody Else:
"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."
--Dr. Johnson
A
Fantabulous T-Shirt:
Buy it
here. (Thanks,
Josh, for wearing it to class.)
This shirt depicts our galaxy, the
Milky Way. Its
diameter is in the neighborhood of 90,000 light years -- about
529,063,394,774,490,000 miles. Our puny solar system appears
subatomic in comparison, less than 0.001266 light years in
diameter.
Scientists estimate that the Milky Way, an average sized
galaxy,
contains 200-400 billion stars. They also expect the
universe to contain more than 100 billion galaxies. Which suggests there are a helluva lot of stars in the Universe:
20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
or more?!?!
That's a big number. I wonder how many of those stars have
planets, like Earth, orbiting them? How many of
those
planets have life? Is it exactly one? Is Earth the
unique
life-sustaining planet?
Of course, nobody knows for sure. But, it's hard to assume
our planet is "special" when we've only observed a smidgen
of the universe. Maybe it's special, maybe it's not. Who knows? Even the Milky
Way
is far too large for us to assume
that Earth is unique. And there are billions of other
galaxies
that we humans have no hope of exploring in detail.
Here
are a few:
This is the sexy spiral galaxy NGC 1300. Every speck of light in this picture
represents a star, like our sun. Yes, you are looking at billions
of stars right now. (BTW, these images are courtesy
of the Hubble
telescope.)
Every speck of light in this picture is a galaxy,
like NGC 1300 above. That's right, each dot is actually a cluster of
billions and billions of stars that we'll never explore. And
those stars have planets -- gazillions of planets -- orbiting them.
(To fully appreciate the number of galaxies in
this photo, see the zoomable version here.)
How "unique" does Earth seem now? How "special" does it feel
to be human? Why do Homo
sapiens need to feel special, are we that egocentric and insecure?
People used to believe that Earth was the center of the solar system,
the sun orbiting our blue planet daily. Galileo disagreed, published
his observation-based science to the contrary and paid a huge
price for it: He was found guilty of heresy and spent the rest
of
his life under house
arrest.
The same center-of-the-universe/need-to-feel-special mentality
that Galileo offended 400 years ago still persists today,
though in different, often more subtle, guises.
For example, isn't nationalism a manifestation of our
central-universe/we're-better-than-you mentality? How about Providence?
Manifest Destiny? Or, more recently, Benevolent Hegemony (based, as it is, on National Exceptionalism)? What about
believing that you and your friends received divine revelation or divine ordination, while the other 5 billion humans were...well...not as lucky?
C'mon, this just reeks of insecurity and egotism.
It's a perfectly
natural -- yet wholly delusional -- defense mechanism, protecting our
fragile self-identities from the obvious: In Universal terms, we are a
tiny, ant-like colony inhabiting a speck of dust.
We
share a teeny bit of real estate, in a cosmic sea of space,
with 6
billion other humans. Shall we continue killing each other, or learn to live as
one? We must let go of the divisive myths and legends that our
pre-Galilean ancestors found so psychologically soothing. Isn't it time
to embrace the enormity of our
universe, marvel at its mystery, and get
over ourselves?
I think it's time.
