This is an exlusive post by Amagh Nduka, a respected professor of theoretical physics and applied mathematics.
Click the post to read in PDF below.
The Asymmetry Between Matter and Antimatter
Amagh Nduka
BS (Berkeley), MS (Stanford), Ph.D. (Chicago)
Professor of theoretical physics and applied mathematics
The publishers of IT News Africa (www.itnewsafrica.com)have launched African Innovator Magazine (AIM), a quarterly magazine dedicated to the coverage of Information Communication Technology and its impact on Africa. Tekedia contributor, Dr. Ndubuisi Ekekwe, was profiled. In this piece, the magazine calls him “a doctor of innovation”.
On the front cover of the first issue readers are asked “What is Innovation?”, a recurring theme throughout the edition. There are several articles that deal with innovation in-and from Africa, including profiles on Ndubuisi Ekekwe “A doctor of innovation” … as well as South African born innovator and inventor Elon Musk.
www.africaninnovatormagazine.com is the home of African Innovator and readers can visit the site to source more information on subscription, future articles and much more.
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We refer to the CERN announcement of July 04, 2012 on the discovery of the Higgs boson. Before anybody gets too excited, it should be noted, in a rather mild submission, that the announcement is arrant nonsense –it is the height ofignorance and naivety-sheer humbug. It is difficult to accept that the so called scientists would conspire to squander Europe ’s (now) scarce resources in an exercise in futility.
We had earlier made comments on their phoney announcements of late 2011 (see attachment) This further submission is a mere icing on the cake. A basic modern physics course has enough ingredients to help settle the two issues, namely, the speed of neutrinos and the particle that gives mass (energy) to other particles without the expenditure of one dollar! We first note that the machine-driven theorists were misled by two kinks in physics: The first is the graviton, which they claim moves with the speed of light! But the graviton is absolutely separated, from our world (an antiparticle), hence no instrument can measure its speed! Thus, it is at rest relative to us. The second is the very crude interpretation of what they call electroweak theory. The particle they call “Z0” is actually the graviton, which gives mass to massive objects; but they erroneously claim that it mediates weak nuclear force.
With the foregoing remarks in mind, we need just two elementary modern physics parameters to settle the two problems, namely, De Broglie wavelength, lD (Louis de Broglie, 1924) and Compton wavelength; lc (Arthur Holly Compton, 1923). The photon, a particle without a corresponding antiparticle, has the least lD, or the greatest speed, and its lc is undefined (lc = ¥). On the other hand, the graviton, an antiparticle without a corresponding particle, has the least lc, or speed zero, and its lD is undefined (lD = ¥). A plot of speed (v) against lc gives a straight line graph joining the origin where the speed is zero, and the value of v where lc = ¥ (here v = c). Thus, all elementary particles have mass lying between m = 0, the photon mass and m = mg, the mass of the graviton – the masses being measured relative to the mass of the graviton, with the mass quantum number a rational number. Similarly all elementary particles have speed lying between v = 0, the speed of the graviton and v = c, the speed of the photon. Thus, nature’s elementary particles are those whose (lc, v) lie on the straight line joining the points (lc, 0) for the graviton and (¥, c) for the photon. This primitive line is in a sense nature’s “selection curve”, all particles whose (lc, v) lie outside this line are not elementary particles of nature.
Amagh Nduka
BS (Berkeley), MS (Stanford), Ph.D. (Chicago)
Professor of theoretical physics and applied mathematics
Subject: The phoney announcements by CERN
Science is replete with controversies, but those of physics are monumental. Examples–The Democritian and Aristotelian hypotheses of matter. The atomic hypothesis of Democritus was roundly rejected and the wrong Aristotelian hypothesis was in force for about 2000 years: Another example is the geocentric hypothesis of Ptolemy and heliocentric hypothesis of Aristarchus of the universe. Here again the wrong geocentric hypothesis was in force for about 2000 years! As a consequence humanity wallowed in ignorance until the 17th century!
Between the 17th century and about 1930 intellect-driven physics grew by the influence of the giants of the subject-Isaac Newton, J.C. Maxwell, Albert Einstein, P.A.M. Dirac, Max Planck, etc. Around 1930 intellect–driven physics was “dethroned” and was replaced by machine-driven physics. For about 80 years now human intelligence has been replaced by machine intelligence and physics theory by model theory! We quote Dirac’s position about their method – “Renormalization entails a practice that no self-respecting engineer or scientist would countenance. To neglect infinitely large terms in a series that approximates to a real measurable quantity is absurd”.
To justify the colossal waste that LHC is, the machine-driven physicists came up with two phoney announcements in late 2011.
In summary, we will not be surprised if they announce the confirmation of their findings in the summer. Of course they have been doing that since the 1930s-quarks, big bang scenario, Bethe’s fusion theory on which ITER is based, expanding / accelerating universe, etc. all of which are mere make-believe. The world should, however, note that global warming, unprecedented violence and frequency of natural disasters, etc. are caused by huge machines like the LHC. Greenhouse gases, for example, make negligible contribution to climate change; the culprit are machines operating at TeV energy range. Unfortunately these machine-driven physicists are unaware that TeV-machines are irrelevant to our understanding of nature; rather these machines are a threat to the survival of life on Earth!
Amagh Nduka
BS (Berkeley), MS (Stanford), PhD. (Chicago).
Professor of theoretical physics and applied mathematics
First of all, I am going to readily admit that I am no political expert. I’m just a little boy with a brain that happens to work (at least, most of the time). So these are not necessarily the opinions of an expert or someone who even claims to be even slightly knowledgeable in the area of political science. However, the important thing is that I have an opinion and even more important is the fact that I have the right to have one.
Nigeria has had a democratic government for almost 12 years. Arriving at democracy definitely did not happen easily. The country had to go through many military dictatorships typically characterized by brutality and utter disregard for the opinions of the Nigerian people. Finally, we were able to wiggle our way to democracy. But is the system of democracy being practiced in the country actually working? How did we arrive at the kind of system we currently run?
Nigeria is the fourth largest democracy in the world. A VOLUNTARY handover of government from military to civilian rulers is quite unusual in an African setting similar to Nigeria’s. The change in government was quite smooth. Also, Nigeria was brave enough to break away from their colonial constitutional heritage, rejecting Britain’s parliamentary form of democracy and modeling the nation’s democracy after the American model instead.
Just like the United States of America, the Nigerian president has a four-year term, with the possibility of a second term thereafter, the national assembly is bicameral (composed of two chambers) with a Senate and a House of Representatives distributed among the states of the population, the independent judiciary has at the apex of its federal structure a supreme court, each state has a governor and a deputy-governor, a unicameral House of Assembly and an independent judiciary. Certain procedures are also similar to the American model.
For instance, appointments to the cabinet, the Supreme Court, and ambassadorial posts require Senate confirmation. So, fundamentally, the Nigerian democratic government system can be said to be a copy of the American system albeit with a few very slight differences.
It is said that the choice to follow the American model was basically because, just like Nigeria, America is large, complex and heterogeneous. However, is it safe to say that America and Nigeria are similar enough to share the same type of government structure? Frankly, I believe Nigeria is a much more complex nation both in terms of the kinds of humans that form its population as well as the myriad of sociocultural challenges the nation faces. It is easy to see that most of the “well-to-do” nations of the world have their own unique forms of government that seem to work, at least to a certain appreciable extent. Examples include Germany, China, Britain and Japan. Of course, we have to admit that they also have their own unique problems as well.
But, this is where the issue lies. As a nation that had been independent since 1960, why did Nigeria not just come up with its own UNIQUE democratic system based on about 39 years of experience as an independent nation? It is no news that Nigeria and Nigerians are quite unique in almost every way and usually cannot be said to be exactly like any other nation on the planet. For instance, the vast majority of Nigerians would vote according to ethnicity and religion rather than according to party ideology or individual principles. This can hardly be said of the Americans we so gallantly copied. Americans are known to be quite individualistic in their decisions, especially those that have to do with politics.
Wouldn’t it be logical to have a governmental system that is just as unique as the people it is formulated to govern rather than just a copy of some other model? Unfortunately, Nigeria has not even been successful in copying the American model. Instead, the democratic system we now practice seems to be a poor copy much like a poor Chinese imitation of an American product. This is obvious from the many problems the country is currently grappling with.
I know there would be some people out there who have been able to come up with their own ideas of a unique governmental system for Nigeria. However, it is pretty obvious that such things have been ignored, especially considering the fact that the present system seems to be working for some very few people who have been able to enrich themselves through the present system. Am I alone in thinking that the present political system makes it quite easy to find a large chunk of the national cake to steal? So many possible political appointments to clinch both necessary and unnecessary… Just a thought.
These are the kinds of things I believe our universities are meant for. Universities that have political science departments need to make a significant impact on the country’s politics. Novel political theories and systems that work, and are specifically tailored to the unique complexities of Nigeria are to be found in our universities’ political science departments. If these are not found there, then these departments probably do not deserve to exist. However, there is no denying the fact that even if all this resarch is done and put forward, it is likely to be ignored. This is just simply unfortunate.
During the military era, which many would agree was a terrible time for the country, democracy was touted as the magic solution to the country’s problems. Finally, we found democracy where we had hidden it. But from what we can now see, democracy is not, in and of itself, a solution to a nation’s problems but a mere stride towards possible solutions, and the present form of democracy we practice in Nigeria does not seem to work effectively. This is not to say that making adjustments to the democratic system would be another magic solution, but it might help.
I strongly believe Nigeria needs to restructure its governmental system to more accurately reflect the complex nature of the Nigerian people rather than copy some foreign system that happens to work for some other nation. Of course, this can only be done after a comprehensive study of the things that make us unique as a nation as well as the many challenges we face as a result of our complex nature. The resulting system of government emanating from such a study and a consequent revamp might not be deemed absolutely palatable by the globalization-crazy international community but it might go a long way in helping.
Nigeria make giant strides towards being a nation that would be a model for others rather than a hapless copycat.
Editor’s Note: Of course if the democracy has not worked well, technocracy will just do. Thanks David for bringing this political commentary on Tekedia. Few will not know that there is no technology without government policy.