The Library of Alexandria: A Bastion of Knowledge Lost

The Library of Alexandria: A Bastion of Knowledge Lost

by

Kyle Benjamin

November 30, 2015

Figure 1: A map of ancient Alexandria from 50 BCE to 50 CE.1

Ptolemy I Soter, c. 376 BCE—c. 283 BCE, The Library of Alexandria (Comprised of a Museum and its main library and the Serapeum—added later), 4th Century BCE.

Marble, Gold, and Bronze.

Dimensions Unknown.

Location: Alexandria, Egypt (some ruins).

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1 MacLeod et al., The Library of Alexandria, Centre of Learning in the Ancient World (New York: I.B. Taurus & Co Ltd, 2000), x.

     The Internet is quite possibly humankind’s greatest achievement. In a single day, we can read practically any book ever written (and, in fact, any book that ever could be written)2, dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, climb to the top of Mount Everest, break the sound barrier, talk to virtually anyone on the planet in real-time, and even take a look around Mars—all from the unparalleled comfort of our beds. The Internet represents the culmination of our species’ desire to catalogue our interaction with and understanding of the universe. And the technology we have developed in our quest for more knowledge never ceases to astound. There are computer chips now, perhaps no larger than a fingernail, that will hold over 100,000 books in digital format (1s and 0s)! That many books would have taken generations to accumulate 2400 years ago. But, as I learn more about our history, it appears we are uniquely adapted on this planet to be broadly creative; to document the world around us through that creativity; to have a sort of analytic impulse. And, since that time so many centuries ago, we have developed increasingly creative ways to document this experience of life. However, we’re also uniquely gullible—a veritable albatross—and will believe almost anything. So, in discussing the Library of Alexandria, I will argue that, as a whole, the institution represented a center of analysis, learning, and information sharing—the mainspring of knowledge in the ancient world at the time. But, there is a particular element of the institution, the Serapeum, that was devoted to the reverence of the Ptolemy-created god Serapis.3 And, while the idea of the Greek Mouseion was focused at the outset on adoration of the Muses, incorporating an Egyptian tradition of using religious temples as libraries into Greek intellectualism manifested in what can be described as one of the first research institutes focused predominately on knowledge expansion.4 Therefore, this work falls mostly under the analytic impulse with only a sprinkling of the believing impulse.*

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2 https://libraryofbabel.info
* The Art History class this was written for categorized the artwork studied into seven impulses. Figure 3 shows an explanation of each impulse.

     Much of what we now know about the Library of Alexandria has been developed piecemeal from various ancient writings. One of the most prominent, called The Letter of Aristeas (c180-145 BC), indicates a high probability of The Ptolemeic Mouseion Academy (Mouseion hereafter) and its Library having been built under Ptolemy II Philadelphius but commissioned by his father, Ptolemy I Soter.5 Demitrius of Phaleron, a student of Aristotle, was chosen by Soter as the first librarian; having been noted for utilizing both an Aristotelian and a Platonic model before when designing a school for Theophrastus.6 The idea behind the entire institution was heavily influenced by both Greek and Egyptian tradition—a sort of synergy of religious and intellectual pursuits. The Mouseion and its Library, thought to have been a rameseseum consisting of a palace, museum, and shrine, essentially functioned as an academic research center where scholars were encouraged to live and work by the Ptolemies who offered a number of enticing amenities.7

     The first three Ptolemies went through what can be described as a kind of bibliomania; i.e. an almost insatiable desire to own every book ever written. It is said that anyone entering Alexandria would have their books seized and copied and then have the copies returned to them; the originals, of course, being kept by the Library and translated to Greek, if necessary.8 The Library is estimated to have had between 400,000 and 700,000 texts and roughly 40,000 of those

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3 MacLeod et al., The Library of Alexandria, Centre of Learning in the Ancient World, 5.
4 Heather Phillips, “The Great Library of Alexandria?,” Library Philosophy and Practice, August, 2010: 2.
5 Heather Phillips, “The Great Library of Alexandria?,” Library Philosophy and Practice, August, 2010: 2.
6 MacLeod et al., The Library of Alexandria, Centre of Learning in the Ancient World, 3.
7 Heather Phillips, “The Great Library of Alexandria?,” Library Philosophy and Practice, August, 2010: 3.
8 Heather Phillips, “The Great Library of Alexandria?,” Library Philosophy and Practice, August, 2010: 4.

scrolls were held in a “daughter” library inside the Serapeum.9 Saying that these people were interested in mapping and documenting the physical and social worlds is an understatement.

     Historian P.M. Fraser proposes that according to Strabo, a Greek geographer, philosopher, and historian: “The Mouseion is part of the royal quarter and it has a cloister and an arcade and a large house in which is provided the common meal of the men of learning who share the Mouseion.”10 Statements made by both Rufinas of Aquileia and Aphthonius suggest a grammatical argument that can be made about their descriptions of the Serapeum being past tense, meaning they both had likely been to the site before 391 AD but wrote the descriptions after its destruction that year—part of Rufinus’ cursory description of the Serapeum being:

                    On the upper level there extended habitations in which temple staff and those whom they called hagneuontes, meaning those who are pure, normally resided.... In the middle of the entire area, there was the sanctuary distinguished by its precious columns, in it was a statue of Serapis, so large that its right hand touched one wall and its left, the other. That monster was said to have been made of all kinds of metal and wood. The interior walls of the sanctuary were believed to have been covered first with gold plate, overlaid with silver and finally with bronze, the last as a protection for the more precious metals.11

          Other than the scarce statements mentioned, very little is known about the physical structure of the Mouseion itself since none of it survived into the 21st century. The only ruins

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9 Heather Phillips, “The Great Library of Alexandria?,” Library Philosophy and Practice, August, 2010: 4.
10 El-Abbadi et al., What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria? (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2008), 53.
11 El-Abbadi et al., What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria?, 90-91.

existing today are those of the Serapeum (see Figure 2). As with practically any ancient situation, centuries since have heard many stories of the unfortunate destruction of this most wondrous place. There was even an elaborate story popularized in the West by a professor at Oxford named Edward Pococke in 1663 about how an Arab general once ordered the destruction of all of the books.12 This story has been, among a few others, debunked as a myth with no clear intention. Nevertheless, while no number is absolutely certain, anywhere from 40,000 to 400,000 books are thought to have been burned in 48 BC in a last-ditch military effort by Julius Caesar that caused fires to rapidly spread through Alexandria.13 And there are so many varied, unconfirmed stories of how the Mouseion and its Library were destroyed that offering the details of all of them here would be time-consuming and ultimately futile. I will say that the Serapeum is generally thought to have been destroyed in 391 AD by Theophilus.14 In any case, it can surely be remarked that an unbelievable amount of information and history was lost.

     Humans are unparalleled in our ability to create—at least on this planet. But if there is one thing that we are even better at, it would have to be destroying all of the things that we’ve created and even some of the things that we didn’t. The Great Library of Ancient Alexandria stands (no pun intended) as a testament to our tentative veneration of knowledge. Even after centuries of experimentation, cataloguing, and advancing our understanding of the world through some of the greatest thinkers in history, our penchant for unbridled arrogance and hostility eventually reduced another marvel of the ages to dirt: a bastion of knowledge lost. One might ask, to what end? Did we learn from it? We’ve reached, what I consider, the most pivotal point in humankind’s history. Access to information is not only light-speed, but quite literally at the tips of our fingers now, we

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12 El-Abbadi et al., What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria?, 213.
13 MacLeod et al., The Library of Alexandria, Centre of Learning in the Ancient World, 70. 
14 El-Abbadi et al., What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria?, 89.

produce enough to provide food, clothing, and housing to every human on the planet, we’ve walked on the moon, and we have learned more about ourselves and the universe in the past 60 years than in all of humankind’s history combined. Yet, tens of thousands die every day due to hunger and other poverty-related issues while we throw millions of tons of good food away annually, some people’s closets could clothe entire communities, we have enough vacant homes in the United States for every homeless person here to get more than one, we don’t even look up at the moon anymore because we’re too glued to our cell phones to be bothered with the likes of “outside”, and we still have people arguing from debunked positions with misrepresented or blatantly false information despite the ability to settle such arguments with a five-second Google search. So, what did we learn from it? Apparently nothing—we’re even more destructive than ever before. And, with all of its hopes and glorious possibilities of being the ultimate bastion of knowledge in the 21st century, we have successfully turned the Internet into the only thing we seem to be capable of producing with our greatest achievements: dirt.

Bibliography

El-Abbadi, Mostafa, William J. Cherf, Dimitar Y. Dimitrov, Maria Dzielska, Jean-Yves
          Empereur, Fayza M. Haikal, Georges Leroux, et al., What Happened to the Ancient
          Library of Alexandria? (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2008).


MacLeod, Roy, Robert Barnes, Wendy Brazil, J.R. Green, Patricia Cannon Johnson, Samuel
          N.C. Lieu, D.T. Potts, R.G. Tanner, John Vallance, and J.O. Ward. The Library of Alexandria,               
          Centre of Learning in the Ancient World. New York: I.B. Taurus & Co Ltd, 2000.

Phillips, Heather. “The Great Library of Alexandria?,” Library Philosophy and Practice, August, 2010: 2-4.

Figure 2: The remains of the Serapeum in Alexandria, Egypt. Taken from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexandria_-_Pompey%27s_Pillar_- _view_of_ruins.JPG

Figure 3: Artwork explored in the Art History course I took was done so in relation to at least one of these impulses.

Generation Dumb: An Open Letter to My Fellow Americans

My whole life I’ve been taught that being American is something that people around the world aspire to. There was always this quaint little story being repeated about a dream and how “if you work really hard, that dream will be realized;” how “if you’re ever downtrodden, there is plenty of opportunity to pull yourself up by the bootstraps;” how “America is the greatest country on the entire planet!” You remember hearing that, right? I know you do! We ALL were taught how star-spangled awesome we are. (In fact, some of you might still hear this or even say it yourselves.) The idea that America represents freedom, honor, justice, and a level of compassion that extends always-open arms to the needy, sick, and desperate is something that we kind of just accepted growing up—as if we are the only country on the planet that venerates these ideas—as if it is something we actually do. You see, I now know that it was just an emotional appeal. And, it worked pretty damn well! It works even to this day! Of course we all want to believe that we are a part of the best damn thing that ever happened to this planet! Right? I mean, isn’t that what we are? Isn’t the United States of America the best fucking thing on the entire planet—past, present, and future?

Sadly, and arguably embarrassingly, the answer to that question is a resounding NO! ‘Sadly’ because we undoubtedly have the potential to be yet squander it unashamedly—although I do feel that segregation through imaginary national boundaries is frivolous and unnecessary—and ‘embarrassingly’ because we self-congratulate as though we indeed are the best. Sure, it may be etched into the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”, but somewhere along the way we slid unquestioningly into our 40+ hour workweek routines and slowly our unprecedented compassion eroded; our respect for human life waned; our desire to uphold the principles upon which this country was founded all but disappeared. (For example, the principle of reviewing policies in the framework of the Constitution and changing them if necessary. Slavery was explicitly condoned in the Constitution but later changed through an amendment when people realized that it’s a fucking shitty policy.) It now seems we have no direction; only passive obedience to mindless materialism and artificiality with absolute irreverence toward the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. And, the homeless—Oh, the homeless! Where do I even begin?

NONE OF YOU gave a flying fuck about the homeless in this country, many of which are VETERANS—that many of you step over and ignore on your way to get $6 coffees—until they were convenient for you to incorporate into your bigoted worldview. (You’ve probably even posted on social media about that time you gave a homeless guy “a five spot”.)  In fact, you cared more about the fucking CUP that the shitty, overpriced coffee came in that YOU STILL WENT AND PAID FOR than you ever did about the homeless. What you probably didn’t hear about is the Denver PD arresting a group of people for building tiny houses for the homeless (on property that was originally used for community gardening but recently sold to a private developer) and then tearing the houses down. Essentially, the message there was “fuck the homeless!” So, where was the public outcry? (Crickets.) And that’s the problem! People tend to only give a shit when whatever they’re giving a fleeting shit about benefits them (or their social media accounts) directly. The moment anyone actually gets downtrodden, or even simply gets accused of doing something considered “offensive” or inappropriate, or really anything that goes against the trendy “norm” of the hour, LOOKOUT—The Social Justice Warrior Brigade (SJWB) will be Johnny-on-the-Spot to tell you what a despicable human being they are. And if presented with evidence that refutes or even destroys whatever bandwagon the SJWB has jumped on, the general response is something akin to, “Facts? Never mind facts! Facts don’t matter!” (Again, crickets.)

So, don’t sit there and try to sell me this bleeding heart bullshit! I’m not buying it! THIS CUP IDIOCY WAS JUST TWO FUCKING WEEKS AGO! Now, you’re all suddenly experts in foreign affairs?! Seriously?! Most of you still can’t differentiate the word ‘your’ from the word ‘you’re’; ‘there’ and ‘their’ from ‘they’re’; and ‘were’ from ‘we’re’. (Apparently, the claim is that it just isn’t important. That’s right, grammar isn’t important.) And, I’m supposed to believe that you’re magically qualified to talk about Syrian refugees? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! GO AHEAD AND FUCKING POINT OUT SYRIA ON THE MAP! In fact, go ahead and name all 50 states in the United States and point those out! I’m willing to bet that (sadly and laughably) a vast majority of you can do neither of those right now without Google. But, sure—your opinion is so VERY fucking special. (-__-)

Sometimes I wonder why I want to do so much for humankind when most of you are, quite frankly, so stupid. (Don’t take too much offense to that. You’re not special. I’m not special. And neither one of us is particularly intelligent. I’m at least smart enough to realize it, though. Plus, being offended is a useless thing to be.) But then I realize that I can’t even imagine living in any other period in our species’ existence. In my humble opinion, we are indeed living in the most pivotal point in Humankind’s history. That’s a bold statement, I realize, but we must consider the ever-expanding knowledge-base we have amassed—especially over the past 60 years or so. In that time, we have learned more about ourselves and the universe we are a part of than in all of our history combined. At least, some of us have. Most others seem to be stumbling around, drooling on themselves, aimlessly shifting from one manufactured hype to the next, acting as if just because they have an opinion it should be considered. Well, guess what, folks: Most of your opinions DO NOT matter. Someone needed to say it because people everywhere have become giant fucking pussies seemingly afraid of their own shadows.

That’s right: MOST OF YOUR OPINIONS DO NOT MATTER! Get that through your fucking heads, people. I know how this all started, though. I get it; we were all told that “everyone is entitled to their own opinion.” But, at some point, people forgot to pass along the caveat that, while we may be entitled to our own opinions (which is something that can easily be proven false with the line of questioning that follows the question, “Entitled by whom?”), whether or not those opinions hold any shred of veracity or relevance is a different story. As a result, the idea that opinion entitlement equals opinion relevance manifested. Thus, American exceptionalism is thriving today. But, when you start pointing out to people the blatant flaws in our socio-economic system, the response tends to be “Well if you don’t like it, you can just git outta here!” Just to be clear, this baseless opinion is supposed to be just as relevant as, say, the fact that the United States doesn’t even crack the top ten countries in the world in education; or that we really only lead the world in debt, military spending (which trumps at least the next ten countries combined), deaths by police, and healthcare costs. But, it just isn’t relevant. Saying, "if you don't like it, then leave" is a fucking stupid opinion. And those of you reading this that often hear these fucking stupid opinions by these next-level morons we all know should stop shying away from calling out this festival of unfettered fatuity. It's time to stop being afraid to say that most opinions are fucking stupid and just do not matter. It's time to stand up an...oh who the fuck am I kidding? I’m a part of one of the most privileged, yet proudly inept, generations to have ever walked the Earth: Generation Dumb. Our motto is simple: "Mommy, they're being mean to me!"

It’s so exhausting trying to explain things to people now that everyone has been deluded into this opinion-aggrandizing scam. I would consider myself someone that is well-educated. After all, I am currently pursuing an undergraduate degree in physics and, considering the reaction I get practically every single time I tell people, I would say that people would generally agree with that statement. Thus far, I have taken over 100 credits of college courses across a vast range of disciplines. I’m very much interested in socio-economic and political issues. It’s just that learning about the way the universe actually operates has always piqued my interest. The joy of finding things out about our interaction with this thing we call “life” is simply unparalleled. But, I’ll be the first to admit that the more that I learn, the more I realize that I don’t know a goddamn thing. Do I find that scary? Do I find that diminishing to this wonderful experience? Of course not! I find it overwhelmingly beautiful and humbling; yet, almost inexplicably exhilarating. Point-blank: Believing without evidence, or faith as many claim, is quite possibly the biggest waste of human existence there is; it’s pure idiocy. And, I’m tired of everyone tip-toeing around the fact that many in society pride themselves on this concept of “faith” (or “dumbassery”, as I like to call it). I’ll give the faithful credit for one thing: You are the ultimate rationalizationists. But, that’s more of an albatross than anything else; the albatross that I’ve given up on trying to help you leave behind. Again, it’s exhausting and I’ll explain why.

When someone that has never stepped foot in a college classroom, never cracked a scholarly journal, doesn’t regularly read anything longer than their friends’ grammatically incorrect, meaningless diatribes on social media, never does any research of any kind, and never tries to advance their understanding by listening to people that have—when that person tries to argue with me about, say, gravity, I have to ask the question, “Where could I possibly begin?” It took me YEARS of math, reading, problem-solving, and several experiments before I could factually utter the words “I sort of understand gravity.” Of course, that was in Newtonian mechanics; Einstein churned out a much more refined explanation requiring more math, more problem-solving, and several more experiments. And even with all of our experimentally-confirmed understandings of gravity, we have yet to arrive at an elusive yet infamous Theory of Everything—the idea that all of the laws of the known universe can be consolidated and condensed into an equation perhaps no longer than a few centimeters. But, you expect me to explain ALL OF THAT—the math, the concepts, the experiments, the EVIDENCE—to you in just a few minutes? Why? So that it destroys your haphazard, completely untenable claims only to have your arrogant, dumb face obliviously say to me “We’ll just agree to disagree” or “I just know in my heart of hearts and you can’t prove I’m wrong and…”? NO! It doesn’t work like that! The burden of proof falls upo…oh, fuck it! NEVER MIND!

Unfortunately, this quest for elegance through brevity, a worthwhile endeavor in the world of equation-making, has made its way into the information-sharing sector of our society morphing it instead into a sort of quid pro quo/“Get it first” instead of “Get it right” monstrosity absent elegance altogether. We now somehow think that talking points are a way to convey large chunks of relevant information. It just doesn’t happen that way; it can’t. Whereas 35 years ago we could sit and watch an interviewer ask a question and get a 5-minute, uninterrupted answer from a single guest at their own pace, now we can’t even hear more than 15-second, sound byte-style responses from sometimes 3 or more guests in an 8-minute-total “interview” about pressing issues that affect us all without endless interruptions, jabs, snide pseudo-intellectualism, and more advertisements than information that can rightly be labeled news. Then, we move on to “Miley Cyrus is at it again…” It begs the question: What the actual fuck?!

We want so badly to feel important; to feel powerful; to feel recognized. Again, we're taught to want all of that. And it appears we’ll ironically stoop to the bottom of the dirt to achieve those feelings. Meanwhile, we don’t stop and take the time to think about the fact that we’re all important in our own nuanced ways; to different people for different reasons. And, not everyone is always going to agree with those ways and reasons. But, if you call yourself any of the several tens of thousands of variations of “Christian”, you should recognize that the power is with love. That’s right, your very own doctrine tells you essentially to love powerfully—not say “FUCK ‘EM! Send ‘em back where they came from! We have millions of homeless here…” Great! I’m glad you’ve finally acknowledged it and you should again read what I said about the homeless above. But, you also need to realize that the money to cover the costs of the refugees was and is going to be created and there’s not a fucking thing you can say or do at this point to change that. You’ve given up that say by pretending to give a shit by sharing a quaint meme with grammatical errors that is supposed to be “enlightening” or by changing your fucking profile picture or by putting #LatestTrendyBullshit with a link to some minimally-educated clown giving what is portrayed as “truth” and then doing, quite literally, nothing else. Yeah? Here’s some fucking TRUTH for you: The fact of the matter is that the money to cover the costs of eradicating poverty worldwide could be created RIGHT NOW—this very moment. It’s a rather simple process that has been made to seem esoteric by those conversations that always shove economic and monetary jargon to the wayside in lieu of infotainment—pushing it into the “it’s complex” category. (In fact, it’s so simple that it can be summed up in about 50 pages. And that’s exactly what the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago did in 1963 with a booklet called Modern Money Mechanics--summed it up in 50 pages. In other words, it’s all a fiction. But, don’t take my word for it! DO THE RESEARCH YOURSELF!) It’s so easy that we create and distribute enough money for war every 8 days to easily end global hunger or provide education to every child on the planet or any number of other socially beneficial programs across the globe. More importantly, we have the resources and technology to feed, clothe, and house every human on the planet. Instead, here we are beating the fucking war drum YET AGAIN! What the fuck is wrong with you people?!

Oh yeah; I forgot I’m writing for mostly uneducated people. Dare I ask, when was the last time any of you opened a textbook or visited a website with peer-reviewed academic information? I’ve noticed lately that when I talk to people about these kinds of topics (or really any topic), I mainly get three types of responses. First, people will basically say that they don’t give a fuck. Second, I get the pseudo-intellectual/Alex Jones/”conspiracy theorist”-type responses which typically have no real evidence and are exceedingly speculative. And, lastly, the rarest of them all would be the engaged, well-read citizen that understands how to distinguish between credible information and baseless propaganda. To prove my point, the vast majority of you fell immediately into one of these categories as soon as you read the second line of this paragraph. If you are not in school, never went to school, or have no plans to go to school, you read that line and said, “Fuck textbooks!” (If you also said, "Fuck school!" or some variation, enjoy being a blithering fucking moron for the rest of your miserable, drama-filled, probably short, shitty little life.) If you get all of your information from people like Alex Jones, Fox “News”, or some popular blog that has no tenable information, then you read that line and started trying to connect the dots of how the “liberal, hippy-lovin’ propagandists and their communist textbooks are trying to jam a giant surgical needle into your head and suck your brains out only to replace them with…” Yeah, you get the point. You should also enjoy being a blithering fucking moron for the rest of your miserable, drama-filled, shitty little life. Seriously, that’s what kind of shameless turd you sound like to those that read that line and either said, “Textbooks are my existence right now! Mrrrrrrr FINALS!” or “I never want to look at a textbook again but my bookshelf is filled with them and my degree in engineering, physics, chemistry, philosophy, geology, education, or some other relevant field is hanging on the wall next to that bookshelf that reaches the ceiling.” Anyone that tries to insult people by apparently using words like “liberal” or “socialist” as pejoratives is a fucking cretin that I can guarantee has no clue what those words even mean.

Alas! What do we do? Well, I have plenty of ideas and know of many others but I keep getting told how “unrealistic” they are by all of you overly-qualified scholars. Never mind the fact that everything I talk about is 100% technologically feasible RIGHT NOW (i.e. automated transportation grid, solar, wind, wave, tidal, and geothermal providing more than all of humankind’s energy needs, vertical farms all over the world, desalination plants all over the world, 3-D printed EVERYTHING, automated service sector, and so on). Never mind the fact that when it comes down to it, you actually don’t know what you’re talking about. Never mind all of that because “facts don’t matter—your opinions do.” (-__-)

I’m not naïve, though; I realize that the amount of stupid out there is daunting. Indeed, the only thing I fear is the direction we are headed as a potential-squandering, immature society. We’re in the boredom-killing, victimhood-manufacturing business. Have you noticed that? No one can take a fucking joke about anyone or anything anymore without the whole “woe is me” bullshit. No one can take any fucking responsibility for anything in America anymore. Well, at least not anything negative that happens because of their very own idiotic choices. (For example, mothers that try to pull the whole “that’s not my baby” bullshit when their sons beat or murder someone. Fuck off already. Your son’s a piece of shit and you’re a shitty parent. Most people don't know how to raise kids. That’s what caused it. Period.) But, if something positive happens, of course that was you! You deserve a medal, a trophy, an editorial, a million fucking dollars from GoFundMe, a yacht, college funds, a retiremen… Give me a fucking break! Go cry in the fucking corner already and again stop acting like just because you have an opinion about or are offended by something that it automatically is elevated to the status of “EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND LISTEN TO ME NOW! WHAT I HAVE TO SAY IS IMPORTANT BECAUSE I’M YELLING IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN! YOU WILL BOW TO MY EVERY WISH AND WHIM BECAUSE IF YOU QUESTION ME YOU ARE [insert cliché pejorative demographic]!” Seriously, will you please fuck off? I’ve learned quite a bit about the universe in my 29 years of existence on this pale blue dot. But, perhaps most revealing would be the sadness I feel when I realize that I can sum up my interaction with other humans in just a single, pitiful little sentence: We lie, cheat, and steal (some of us even kill) with no real remorse and, in continuing to doing so unabated and ignored, deserve whatever the fuck we get. 


Sincerely,
Kyle      

Debate or Debacle?

     On October 28th, 2015, the Republican presidential candidates are going to be having a "debate" at my school about "key economic issues such as jobs, taxes, the deficit, and the health of the U.S. economy." My first response to that was, "In other words, the traveling troupe of clowns, bigots, and legalese jugglers is coming to town. (-__-)" Here is the second:

     Let's examine the issues, though. Most jobs in our highly technical age are, quite frankly, outmoded and unnecessary. Right now, we have the technology to automate a vast majority of service and manufacturing jobs throughout our entire global society; to provide access abundance to the necessities of life for every human on the planet. Anything redundant, dangerous, or simply pointless--due to the fact that the only reason it exists is to perpetuate the monetary/market system; i.e. it contributes nothing meaningful or beneficial to society or oneself (money is a nothing thing and doesn't count as meaningful or beneficial)--can be done by a machine or a set of machines more efficiently, more precise and accurate, and much faster than any human or group of humans. The machines don't need breaks, pay, pension, health insurance, etc., and can work all day, every day without complaining; machines have no feelings. In fact, dark factories, i.e. where production occurs in buildings that require minimal to no lighting, very well could (and possibly should) be the future of manufacturing. 

     Of course, the first set of questions regarding this idea include, "So, what are people going to do if they don't have jobs?" Sometimes one of my favorite things in communication happens and I don't even have to answer because the person asking answers for me, apparently unaware of the fact that I'm perfectly capable of formulating a response: "Sit around and do nothing all day?" Hmmm... (Wryly scratching head while preparing the usual response), "Is that what you're going to do?" (-__-) Well, of course not! You're not like everyone else, are you? You're not like those degenerates in society that would just "do nothing", are you? No! You're "different" and..."special." (You're not.)

     Maybe you’re thinking, “what if machines decide that Earth would be much better without humans and (DUN-DUN-DUUUUN!) destroy us all?” Well, I have a few points to make about this one. First, as I stated above, machines have no feelings. So, if we smashed our cell phones in front of 20 other cell phones, they're not going to immediately revolt and say, "We're going to get you (and your little dog too)!" No; we have to remember that there's ALWAYS a human being pushing the button to drop the bombs or pull the trigger. Second, we're perfectly capable of destroying each other as we ever-so-nonchalantly continue that barbarous tradition while simultaneously patting ourselves on the back for inching our societal way toward all-inclusive human and environmental health and well-being; awarding each other trinkets and uttering hollow gestures in an almost tragic display of vapid, unquestioning reverence. The only difference now is that we abuse our technology making it far easier to streamline the process; i.e. whereas the process of reloading a rifle two centuries ago took an inordinate amount of time in terms of potential for being killed while in battle, now we can literally cut people into a pile of pieces because of the number of rounds being fired at once; or liquify their bodies with chemical agents; or even disintegrate their bodies with nuclear weapons. Third, not only do we have this technology, WE USE IT! All the while we venerate ourselves for our supposed civility and exceptional quality of “the most intelligent species on the planet.” 

     Other questions that follow typically are the result of disbelief that such a system is even possible. “Isn’t that Utopia?” “Do you really think ‘they’ll’ ever let it happen?” And so on. While it would be fun to pick apart these questions and explain why they imply that no thought at all was put into them, I have more issues to cover. Realizing I’ve written this much already about one topic and that some people have probably stopped reading by now, I’m moving on. 

     So, what about taxes, the deficit, and the health of the U.S. economy? Well, by now it is hopefully glaringly obvious that in an automated manufacturing/distribution society, there would be no need to even have money and thus no taxes, no debt, no barter, and no servitude of any kind. If we can’t realize that infinite growth CANNOT happen on a finite planet, then we are a sorry lot indeed that will likely drive ourselves into extinction while dragging most of the rest of the species on this majestic world that we are destroying with us! What we need is a GLOBAL economy based upon resources—not money. When you have an economy based upon money (which is really just a 5 letter word for “debt” in a fractional reserve banking system), human health and well-being are secondary at best—if they’re even taken into account at all outside of the context of maintaining a populace of obedient low-wage workers. It’s just a modern form of slavery. In fact, it would likely be fair to say that more slavery exists today than ever before in humankind’s history. It’s just an evolved form of slavery—economic slavery. Physical slavery requires slaveowners to feed, clothe, and house their slaves. Economic slavery requires the slaves to feed, clothe, and house themselves.

     Ask yourselves the question, “if we continue to segregate ourselves as a species with imaginary, yet socially constructed and reinforced, racial categories, social statuses, and national boundaries, what can we really expect out of such a system?” Our similarities FAR outnumber our differences. An otherworldly species, observing ours, would likely find our differences TRIVIAL at best. We are so much alike it’s almost laughable when people cling on to these traditionalized, antiquated notions. Almost; but then the realization sets in that these people are dead serious, refuse to even listen to any other ideas, let alone accept them, and really are stupid enough to move us into a position of setting into motion and possibly accelerating our self-destruction. Of course, this brings me to the Republican Party.

     We are talking about a political party that consists of people whose majority DENY EVOLUTION—an accepted scientific FACT corroborated by mountains of evidence supporting the theory that describes it; people that think it’s right for old, rich, white men to control women’s bodies; people that think the entire planet should be open for privatized, war-profiteering, monopolizing, tax-break-laden, poverty-wage-paying, multibillion-dollar, multinational, pension-stealing, infinite-growth, environmentally devastating business; people that constantly try to use the Bible as a basis for their political and governmental decisions which completely undermines the very principles established by our Constitutional Republic; namely, that religion has NO PLACE in government. THAT LAST ONE ALONE should requisite disqualification from public office. It’s quite counter-Constitutional to swear an oath on a Bible; this unofficial tradition MUST end. If you swear an oath TO the Constitution, then swear ON the Constitution—not the Bible. But, you want me to respect that? As a future scientist, you want me to respect science deniers? NEVER! However, don’t misconstrue what I’m saying here. I FULLY support everyone’s Constitutionally protected rights—in this case, the right to say and believe anything. However, that in NO WAY means that I actually have to respect what anyone says OR believes. Beliefs and statements are NEVER exempt from criticism, ridicule, mocking, etc! The moment exemptions are made because someone’s feelings got hurt or they were “offended” is the moment freedom of speech dies.

     So, I’m not offended by this taking place at this University; I don’t want it to not happen or anything. I’m simply pointing out the Socratic irony in having a debate comprised mostly of science-deniers at one of the top science and engineering universities in the country.

Racism in America

The following is a controversy response paper I wrote for a class in 2015. The article this references is linked below:

  The Billig article highlights the link between hatred and enjoyment by examining racist jokes on 3 different “jokes” websites. These sites display an incredible amount of hatred and bigotry toward black people in the forms of an almost nonchalant use of the N-word as well as numerous photos of lynchings and hangings in the South. The sites are rife with official-sounding “legal disclaimers” that attempt to downplay the seriousness of the material on each. Essentially, the way these disclaimers are worded, coupled with the disgusting pictures and obscene remarks, seems to scream, “Hey! Look at us; we’re the worst assholes on the planet!”
This article is especially revealing at this particular moment, as there is intense controversy surrounding the Confederate flag. One of the issues seems to be that to a large portion of historically well-educated people, this flag represents one thing: overt racism. The argument for proponents of the flag tends to be, “It’s our heritage.” The immediate response to that is, “Heritage of what—extreme support for slavery and treason to the United States?” And so the debate rages on and on with historical inaccuracy after historical inaccuracy being offered as justification for continued support of the Confederate flag.
One thing is clear to me: I support 100% everyone’s right to say whatever they want. And, at the same time, I support 100% everyone else’s right to tell them what a moron they are for saying such. So, it really pisses me off when suddenly everyone decides to give a shit about the same thing for 3 seconds and we take things way too far and over the top. Now we have corporations distancing themselves entirely from the Confederate flag, refusing to sell it in stores. Walmart and Amazon have jumped on this bandwagon; even TV Land decided today to stop airing episodes of the Dukes of Hazard. This, to me, is completely ridiculous and shows how complaisant we have all become.
It’s one thing to point out and criticize; quite another to start hastily banning things because some people might find them offensive. This is the point that we are at and I find it disturbing that, like sheep, people are blindly following these trends and not even thinking about any possible ramifications or slippery slopes these types of actions lead to. What’s next—banning To Kill a Mockingbird or Gone With the Wind? Sure, let’s ban those but ceaselessly promote mind-numbing garbage like the Kardashians, or the Bachelor, or Judge Judy, and all of the other things in our society that make a mockery of a supposedly intelligent species. That’s right—instead of thoroughly examining and resolving the conditions which lead to aberrant behavior, we’ll just start banning anything that absolutely anyone takes exception with while simultaneously pushing predetermined social trends and fads because, well, that will obviously work.**
Such is life in our idiocracy. Never mind the fact that over 10,000 people needlessly starve to death everyday around the world; or that millions of Americans are homeless, starving on the streets; or that we indiscriminately bomb brown people on an almost-daily basis; or that American society has been dumbed down to the point that most people can’t even find their ass with both hands, we lead the world in only prison population and debt, and yet we still have cretins screaming at the top of their lungs about how we’re “the greatest goddamn thing that ever happened to the whole, wide world! And, if you don’t like it, you can just git the hell outta here!” Yeah; we’re the best! This type of ignorant arrogance is why many people around the world have the image of a fat, slobby dumbass when they think of an American. 
     In conclusion, racism is alive and thriving in American society. Anyone that starts a sentence with, “I’m not racist, but…” and then goes on to rationalize some type of behavior by stigmatizing it and attaching it to a skin color is called…hmm…I know this one…I think it’s… Oh yeah! There is a word already for it—RACIST! And there is perhaps no better platform for examining how many people you know that are racist than Facebook. Over the course of the past 2 weeks, I’ve seen more Confederate flags than I have my entire life. It is interesting to point out that the same people, at least on my timeline, that are posting undying support for the Confederate flag are also posting their staunch opposition to gay marriage; using openly discriminatory language such as “n*****s” and “f*****s” when talking about both of these subjects. I’ve even seen juxtapositions of the Confederate flag being praised and rainbow flag burning. But, according to them, they’re “not racist” or bigots and the Confederate flag doesn’t represent racism or bigotry. You know, the same way that throwing up a disclaimer on a site full of racism—some present in the disclaimer itself—means that those that post on the site aren’t racist.

** UPDATE 
So... Yeah. Five years later, I read this and think, "FUUUUUCK, what an asshole." The two paragraphs preceding these asterisks are proof of just how pervasive yet subtle the mindset of unrecognized white privilege can be. While sitting in a university setting, in a communications class called Discourse, Culture, and Identity, listening to the stories of my fellow black students, AND having already known about the Black Lives Matter movement and what it's all about, I STILL had the audacity to share some bullshit story about how I'd been discriminated against and called cracker and blah blah blah... 🙄 

If by some chance any of those students ever happen to read this or remember my interactions with the classroom, I'm sorry if I ever said anything that might have diminished your experiences. It was wrong and I'm ashamed of having never been willing to listen or recognize my own privilege. Were we all at the same world-renowned university? Sure. But, that doesn't magically make our society's deeply-rooted, systemic racism problem go away. It's real. Systemic racism is real. There is no debate on this subject. It needs addressed immediately and it starts by stating unequivocally:

#BLACKLIVESMATTER

June 6th, 2020 - KBB

I Find Your Offense Offensive!

In 2012, at The Laugh Factory in Los Angeles, comedian Daniel Tosh was performing a set during which he made a rape joke directed at an audience member. The audience member, apparently writing anonymously on her friend’s Tumblr account, details her recollection of the interaction in a post titled, “A Girl Walks Into A Comedy Club.” According to this account, Tosh reportedly stated “some very generalizing, declarative statements about rape jokes always being funny,” to which she yelled out, “Actually, rape jokes are never funny!” Tosh allegedly retorted with, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…” The account proceeds to explain how the anonymous girl “completely stunned and finding it hard to process what was happening,” and her friend, “high-tailed it out of there.” Concluding, she explains how the experience was “viscerally terrifying and threatening all the same.” The article was shared to a viral extent which garnered a response from Tosh through his Twitter account that read, “all the out of context misquotes aside, i’d like to sincerely apologize http://t.co/pt!7kJ2c” and shortly after, “the point i was making before i was heckled is there are awful things in the world but you can still make jokes about them. #deadbabies”.

Rape is a particularly controversial topic not only because of the obvious implication in atrocious behavior and sexual violence against another being as well as the psychological conditions of both the perpetrator and the victim before and after, but also because it appears to be an increasingly common, yet relatively under-acknowledged, problem in our society. A socially ubiquitous (at least here in the US) unwritten rule is that if a topic is controversial, e.g. religion, politics, racism, etc., then we shouldn’t talk about it in public. And if a topic is deemed too controversial, such as rape, it is considered offensive to even mention it let alone make a joke. A general term that is typically used to describe this is political correctness. And, quite frankly, I find political correctness offensive; I’m offended by others being offended and thinking being offended implies moral superiority; i.e I’m kidding (except the moral superiority part) and it’s utter BS—Bad Science!

We’ve devolved into an endlessly repeated stream of meaningless utterances alluding to “being offended” but never actually stop and take the time to solve our problems. We are so inundated with media-manufactured controversiality, that we don’t even focus on the problems anywhere near long enough to effectuate any semblance of effective resolutions. That is, we are now living within a carefully constructed, predetermined news cycle that simply shuffles us hurriedly through predictable story after predictable story; i.e. if we aren’t talking about gun rights because of another shooting, we’re talking about racial tension because many of those shootings involved white police officers shooting black citizens; if we’re not talking about the latest celebrity infidelity or tactless, unread remark, we’re focusing on science deniers’ (anti-vaxx, GMOs, climate, etc) untenable, fear-mongering claims that so often point to “god” and the Bible as the be all, end all; and if we’re not harping the terrorism chords, we’ll endlessly cook up the most meaningless bunch of stir-fried bullshit to sell to the mindless automatons in society that pride themselves so heavily on maintaining the status quo they aren’t even aware exists. It’s absolutely asinine! We aren’t born bigots, racist, or prejudiced in any way whatever; all of that is taught.

Language is an extraordinary, powerful tool. Coupling a deep, profound understanding of how we communicate through everyday talk with the exponential increase in new advents in digital technology, i.e. cell phones, internet, social media, etc., results in a truly awe-inspiring phenomenon—the power to easily manipulate large groups of mostly uneducated people. Almost no other better exemplification of this truth exists than that of a monologue in the 1976 movie Network. In it, Howard Beale, the main character of the movie, a controversial television host/news anchor, gives an impassioned speech during a broadcast after the chairman of the board of a particular broadcasting corporation died and he saw exactly where news was headed in a for-profit, 24-hour news cycle. Beale had this to say: “We’re in a lot of trouble!…why is that woe to us? Because you people and 62-million other Americans are listening to me right now. Because less than three percent of you read books! Because less than 15 percent of you read newspapers! Because the only truth you know is what you get over this tube! Right now, there is a whole—an entire generation that never knew anything that didn’t come out of this tube! This tube is the Gospel. The ultimate revelation. This tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers—this tube is the most awesome goddamn force in the whole godless world and woe is us if it ever falls into the hands of the wrong people…And when the 12th largest company in the world controls the most awesome goddamn propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network!”

      Woe is us; as this is exactly what has happened with only a handful of for-profit corporations currently controlling, quite literally, everything that we read, watch, and listen to. So, instead of focusing on a problem such as rape long enough to solve it, and then actually solving it, as Beale continues in this same monologue, “…we’re in the boredom-killing business.” And with the instant-gratification, instant-information society we’ve become comes the inability to resolve anything. We simply plaster over our problems and hope it sticks. Bringing this seemingly divergent essay full circle, people feel that when it comes to severely controversial issues, their being offended somehow constitutes automatic acknowledgement and accommodation. However, it solves absolutely nothing and is, in a practical sense, rather useless. In other words, we can continue to get up in arms about issues and celebrate our perpetual lip-service to them with quaint new memes and hashtags and fleeting social trends that give the illusion of effective group participation (displaying instead perfect examples of herd mentality), or we can study the factors that shape human behavior and use this information to design a society where the conditions that cause such aberrant behavior as rape do not even exist. We must realize that the most powerful resource on the planet is the human mind and ask ourselves the question, “What are we doing with it?”

AC/DC: Revolutions

     Electric and magnetic phenomena have been observed for well over 2000 years. In ancient Greece, it was discovered that rubbing cat fur on amber would allow someone to pick up feathers without actually contacting them with the piece of amber. As well, a mineral was discovered in an area of Greece called Magnesia that contains Fe₃O₄, magnetite—a naturally occurring magnetic material. The object of much of our fascination and discovery for the past few centuries especially, what is now known as electromagnetism has become the cornerstone of modern civilization. Nearly every facet of our lives is now dependent upon the perpetual production and transfer of electrical power. TVs, radios, computers, traffic lights, toasters, microwaves, and all of the other conveniences we effortlessly plug into an outlet to use function according to a myriad of insights gained through experimentation conducted mostly in the past four centuries. Fermat, Franklin, Watson, Lagrange, Cavendish, Coulomb, Volta, Biot & Savart, Faraday, Gauss, Oersted, Ampere, Maxwell, Tesla, and many others made incredibly impactful contributions to humankind’s understanding of this most intriguing phenomenon. However, credit for popularizing induction motors and the long-distance transfer of power goes to Nikola Tesla.

            Nikola Tesla was born in 1856 in Smiljan, Croatia. After studying physics and math at the Technical University of Graz and philosophy at the University of Prague, Tesla had a vision in 1882 for a new, brushless design for an AC (alternating current) motor. Over the course of the next few decades, that vision essentially developed the precursor to our modern electrical grid. In fact, in 1895—the same year his lab in New York burnt down—with the financial backing of George Westinghouse, Tesla and General Electric installed AC generators at Niagara Falls. After many years of debating Thomas Edison, who championed DC (direct current) transmission as the future, it became apparent that alternating current was the superior technology for long-distance transmission. So, in honor of Nikola Tesla, this paper will contrast DC generators with AC generators. Power factor calculation will also be highlighted.

            Electric generators and motors operate according to principles outlined in Faraday’s Law. Faraday’s Law summarizes the ways in which an electromotive force (emf) may be generated by changes in a magnetic environment. That is, Faraday’s Law basically states that for a coil of wire, any changes in the magnetic environment will induce a voltage (emf) in that coil.

            Essentially, the first form is called the differential form while the second is called the integral form. Faraday’s Law is simplified for understanding generators and motors with multiple loops by the following equation, where N is the number of turns:

            This particular statement of Faraday’s Law highlights a direct proportionality between the number of turns of the coil and the magnitude of the induced emf; i.e., the more turns there are in the coil, the higher the induced emf. There are limitations, however; some of which will be discussed below. So, what is a generator?

A generator is simply a device that converts mechanical energy into electrical energy. It consists of a ferrous frame, called the stator, pole pieces, wound with wire in opposite directions, and the armature, also known as the core, which is the rotating part. The armature is made of many thin strips of an iron-silicon based material, called laminations, that are typically laser cut or die punched, then stacked together and fixed by a shaft through the center of the stack. Around the ridges of the laminations, copper wire is wound in specific patterns a specific number of times. Essentially, the number depends on the permeability of the stator, i.e. that is, the ease with which a ferrous metal can be magnetized, as well as the saturation point of the pole pieces, i.e. the maximum flux density of the pole pieces. At one end of the armature there is attached to the shaft a piece called the commutator. The purpose of the commutator is to provide a path to extract the induced voltage as the armature rotates through the magnetic field. It is made by attaching evenly alternating conductors and insulators to the shaft and connecting one end of one of the windings to one of the conductors and connecting the other end of that same winding to the conductor on the opposite side of the shaft. This process is repeated until all of the opposite conductors are attached in the same manner to a single winding.

            The pole pieces are also made of high permeability ferrous material and are wound many times with thin copper wire. This winding is called the shunt field and produces the main magnetic field through which the armature spins. If self-excited, the pole windings are wired in parallel with the carbon-based brushes that contact the commutator which means that the output will vary greatly with varying speeds as well as changing load. (The brushes are made of carbon because it is very slick and resistance decreases as temperature increases.) If separately-excited, the shunt field is instead connected to a field supply with a field adjust (typically a variable resistor) and provides much better control. In essence, the strength of the shunt field depends upon something called amp-turns. Amp-turns refer to the amount of current put through a conductor coiled a number of times. Low currents produce low flux density while high currents produce high flux density. Saturation occurs as the output voltage tapers off when graphed with field amps on the x-axis and output voltage on the y-axis. The relationship is linear at first but tapers off as the pole pieces reach a point where the inherent molecular properties of the material, along with their limited spatial dimensions, prohibit any more field lines, and thus flux, from being produced. As loads are added to the generator, this flux tends to become distorted. This is called armature reaction and is remedied by adding smaller interpoles between the main poles that are wired in series with the armature circuit.

            Now that a basic understanding of how a DC generator operates has been established, AC generators will now be examined. The main difference between AC and DC generators is that instead of implementing the split ring design of the commutator, as outlined above, AC generators are wired with each end of a loop connected to a separate slip ring. It is across and because of the separation of these slip rings that the sinusoidal, alternating voltage, and thus alternating current, are extracted using carbon-based brushes. Another crucial difference is that as you add more loops in an AC generator, they must be separated by particular angles. For example, in a typical single phase generator, there is a single sinusoidal voltage and current, i.e. positive to negative to positive to negative and so on, because there is a single coil of wire. Two phase generators have two coils that are perpendicular to each other which means two sinusoidal voltages/currents will be 90 degrees out of phase when graphed. Although many more types of polyphase generators exist, such as six phase, perhaps the most common are three phase generators.

            Three phase generators have a high efficiency in changing mechanical energy into electrical energy due to a continuous field flux. This is because of the Y-configuration of the coils in the generator. These coils are 120 degrees apart from each other. Each sinusoidal wave will be 120 degrees out of phase and generated at a rate of 60 Hz. As a result, the voltage is never 0. Hence, current is never 0. Therefore, there is relatively little energy lost through the process of converting the mechanical energy to electrical energy. As long as the load is balanced, each phase will deliver the same power. With the Y-configuration, if a voltmeter is placed across any phase to neutral, it will read 120V.

            Once the alternating voltage is produced with the AC generator, transformers are used to step up and step down the voltage for long distance transmission. Sending large currents over long distance is highly impractical because of the size of wire required. By stepping up the voltage, current is reduced in order to maintain the same power consequently requiring smaller gauge wire:

P = IV

            Typically, from the power station, the voltage is stepped up to around 345,000 V; sometimes to over 700,000 V. Once reaching the substation near the destination city or town, the voltage is stepped down to around 7,200 V and sent on to houses and businesses. Still other transformers, the ones at the top of a lot of the poles along almost every street around, step the voltage down once more to, 240 V, 120 V, or some combination of both, and then connect to residences and commercial buildings. Alas! A switch is flipped and lights come on. Well, it’s not quite that simple!

            When power companies transmit energy over long distances, there are many varying loads along the way which, as alluded to above, will affect the output voltage of the generators.  So, how do they maintain proper voltage output and thus keep the lights on without noticeably flickering? Well, the voltage output from the power company is essentially constant, so it’s really up to the customers drawing large amounts of power, such as commercial facilities that have many electric motors running to not waste power. The short answer is that phasors are used. No, not like the ones from Star Trek; those are phasers. Phasor diagrams are graphical representations of impedance caused by capacitors and inductors in a circuit. Impedance, Z, is anything that resists or impedes current.

            If a graph is made with the x-axis labeled real resistance and the y-axis labeled as an imaginary axis, +j and –j, the above equation will become much clearer. Essentially, this equation is saying that impedance is equal to the algebraic sum of the resistance, R, the capacitive reactance, X_C, and the inductive reactance, X_L. Inductive reactance is situated in the first quadrant while capacitive reactance is in the fourth quadrant. There is an interesting interplay between all of these quantities that ultimately are calculated as real or true power, i.e. the power across the resistor that is the only kind doing work, apparent power, i.e. the power across the inductor or inductors, and reactive power, i.e. the power across a capacitor bank. It is on the careful, dynamic balance of these three quantities that the companies rely to maximize the real power extracted. The goal is to maintain a power factor at or at least close to 1. In other words, as loads change in the facility, capacitor banks are used to balance the reactive and apparent power along the real power line. Since resistive power is the only power doing work, it is the only type that is useful; the others are basically a waste. Therefore, it is important for high energy consumers to constantly monitor the changes in capacitive and inductive reactance in order to reduce waste of the transmitted power; something that would surely make Tesla proud.

            Nikola Tesla lived to see a large portion of his work implemented in society. But, he didn’t do any of it for the money. In fact, he died alone and broke in his suite at the New Yorker Hotel in January of 1943. Instead, Nikola Tesla wanted to power the world for free. He even designed the system that could do it. The breadth of his accomplishments stands as a testament to the power of creative, visionary minds the world over. Tesla’s dedication in the face of adversity and unparalleled innovative skills have inspired countless scientists and engineers since his death. And, it is doubtless that he will continue to inspire generations to come.

In a society that operates almost entirely dependent upon science and technology, it is up to the scientists and engineers to recognize the necessity to examine other methods of social organization and not just focus on churning out more and more advanced technology that fewer and fewer people understand. Why should the idea of allowing those in society that have no clue how a certain piece of technology even works and that typically only have financial motivations dictate the development of such technology? It seems inexcusable to have virtually no one in the scientific community step up and ask the question, “Do we have the resources and the technical know-how?”, instead of, “Do we have the money?” And, it’s a bit strange that a lot of scientists seem to have no problem at all working on weapons of death and destruction. For humans, it’s totally reasonable to, as if by some banking miracle, find the money to bring together 130,000 scientists to develop one of the most unimaginably destructive devices known. But, try to find the money to bring together 130,000 scientists to develop a globally synergistic production and distribution system to provide the basic necessities for every human on the planet and prepare to revel in the glory of being called a socialist, a quack, an idealist, a utopian, or any number of other disparaging, rather unscientific pejoratives. What an absolute travesty! That mindset flies in the face of Tesla and the others that have contributed massively to scientific revolutions in our society by stepping outside of the boundaries of the norm. It turns out that just because a lot of people agree that a certain idea is infallible does not automatically make that idea correct or accurate. In the words of industrial designer and social engineer, Jacque Fresco, “Everyone once believed Earth was flat, but that didn’t make it so.”