Sunday & Monday March 1 & 2, 2009 (diary)

Autumn is here. Unlike Europe where, if I remember correctly, the change of seasons always commences on a 21st of the month, in Australia it is on the 1st. No change in the weather at all though. It is quite warm in fact, around the 30°C with a clear blue sky, lots of sun and still a warm surf at 26°C. So who's complaining ? Not me that's for sure.

The board walk track through the dunes behind Mooloolaba beach has been closed for the last 4 weeks or so, for maintenance and a fresh coat of paint. It has changed from a dull greenish grey (like on this photo) to a deep red brown. Finally it is open again to the public. The surf is rather choppy, but the odd wave can be surfed on.   On Monday evening Babette takes me out for dinner at the Buderim Tavern, quite pleasant and the food is OK. I had not been here for years.

Tuesday the weather remains sunny and warm. I make arrangement for parking my car next week near Brisbane Airport and book a hire car with Koala Rentals for my stay in Adelaide next week. I also make a booking for dinner at the Spirit House for an evening after my return from Adelaide. I have invited Mel again, as she has never been there and I am sure she will enjoy it very much.

Tuesday & Wednesday March 3 and 4, 2009 (diary)

Tuesday morning Diddilliba bridge as usual. Ralph, who has been in hospital for an operation on his back, is back at bridge, the operation was a success.
At noon, as I drive to the beach my brakes warning light comes on. I have to replace them, a costly exercise. Driving my Mercedes is marvelous, but parts for it in Australia are hugely expensive.
I have a strange cramp in my left lower leg, it started suddenly yesterday when walking on the beach. So I drive to my regular swim spot instead of walking and limp into the surf. I am fine once in the water. It will wear off again in a day or so I am sure.

So Wednesday morning I get up early and am at the workshop in Woombye at 7.30 AM. Some awkwardly positioned rubber fuel lines need also to be replaced. All up a lengthy wait of 5 hours plus. I am making good use of it by up dating some of my web pages and writing this Blog.
Today, the 4th of March, it is my mother's birthday. I will celebrate it with Babette tonight with a glass of Henkell Sekt.

Doug is still in India, marketing and promoting Babette's schools. He is doing very well, visiting even remote areas, giving lectures, workshops and even has been on local TV over there. He will be back next Monday and I will leave for Adelaide the day after that on Tuesday.

Thursday March 5, 2009 (diary)

Awareness 27 continues from February 26
Before this man came along we lived in a comfortable world where space and time were considered independent and absolute entities. Fixed dimensions we had no trouble understanding and working with in our minds. Albert Einstein changed all that forever. For those (like me) who bother to become aware of it life will never be the same again.

Space and time as we understand them now are closely interrelated, and combined into one single entity : spacetime, which is not "absolute" (fixed) but flexible and can buckle, stretch, contract, bend under the influence of gravity or energy. As Einstein put it :

Einstein's publication of his Theory of General Relativity in 1916 put the sciences of physics and cosmology on an entirely new path of discoveries, uncovering amazing aspects of reality, which are hard or even impossible to comprehend by the limited human mind.

Brian Greene in his book Fabric of the Cosmos (I have referred to previously) has documented much of this, explaining it in easy to understand common layman's language. Here follows his visualisation of time.

Time is not like a dynamic flowing river, rather it is like a frozen block of ice. Consider an elongated block of ice, cut in parallel slices like a loaf of bread. Each slice represents a "NOW" moment in your life. And of course as your notion of time progresses you proceed from one "NOW" slice to the next, and the next, and so on.

On the Diagram below your past is shown in purple. The thin dark purple lines are "NOW" slices you lived through moments ago. The thick purple line is you NOW point right now, while the pink future is ahead of you.
No matter where your two friends John and Pete are, as long as you all three are stationary (or sit with you in a car or plane traveling together at the same speed and in the same direction) your three NOW slices coincide.
But as soon as you each move at different speeds in different directions the picture changes dramatically.

John, who was with you talking to you a minute ago, steps into his car and drives away from you. As an immediate result his NOW time slices are rotated at a small angle to yours, cutting through your past.
Pete, who lives 50 km away at the other end of town (who just phoned to say he will take you to dinner) has also jumped into his car and is now traveling towards you. Pete's NOW time slices have also rotated slightly with respect to your's and are now cutting through your future.

It is important to realise that this is not just theory. It has been proven with high precision clocks in airplanes flying around the world. The larger the speed difference between the two people the larger will be the angle between their two sets of NOW slices. And the farther away the two people are from each other the deeper they cut into each others past or future.

Here on earth the differences are minute and not noticeable in daily life. Modern planes however do take the above into account with respect to their flight navigation.
But let us take a hypothetical living creature - we will call him Max - who lives far away on a planet in a galaxy 10 billion light years away. You and Max sit quitely in your perspective living rooms perhaps watching the evening news on TV, and although far far apart you are both on the same NOW time slice.
Suddenly Max gets up and walks outside to do his daily exercise, jogging at around 10 km per hour. If he is running away from you his NOW slice will cut 100 years into your past, well before you were born. If on the other hand he decides to jog towards you his NOW will be 100 years ahead of you into your future, when you will be dead for sure.

Do the same imaginary exercise while Max is sitting in an airplane and the NOW time slice difference has increased to a wacking 10,000 years !!
Awareness continues on March 6