Cosmologist Sean Carroll gave a TED talk Distant time and the hint of a multiverse. He said “The universe is really big. We live in a galaxy, the Milky Way Galaxy. There are about a hundred billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. Every one of these (little blobs) is a galaxy roughly the size of our Milky Way — a hundred billion stars in each of those. There are approximately a hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe. . .”
“What you have to think about is we have a universe with a hundred billion galaxies, and a hundred billion stars each. At early times, those hundred billion galaxies were squeezed into a region about this big – (literally a pinpoint) — at early times.
Tag: complexity
Quantum Entanglement Redux
The notes below from Wired Magazine (Jan. 2011) shed light on how BREAKING THE LIGHT images are made through an interaction with light photons called quantum entanglement. Each image is made during a single time exposure with a hand held camera. While the shutter is closed I am “blind” to the multi-colored lights where I am shooting. The camera does a “quantum dance” that guides it movements. These excerpts shed light on how my “blind” eye influences my other open eye and vice-versa through quantum entanglement. The robin’s eyes, through a layer of cryptochrome at the retina, are theorized in this article to have quantum entanglement with the earth’s very weak magnetic field.
Healthcare Patents and Hot-Dog Vendors
While patents on medical devices seem normal, patents on drugs and chemical entities may seem like a stretch. I am not sure that the law makers in Venice in 1474, who invented the legal concept of a patent, envisioned the need to patent molecules. In fact, molecules were not even envisioned at that time. We all know that a patent allows an inventor time to commercialize his or her product, but are patents really needed for the economic viability of healthcare? Shouldn’t healthcare be all about saving lives and promoting health and not about making money on people who desperately need healthcare? Do patents have a benefit to patients, not just the patent holders? I think the answer to this question is “perhaps.” Patents promote diversity of products in the healthcare market place by forcing inventors to develop drugs outside the domain of currently patented products.
How the World Works
Excerpts from the book Confronting Complexity X-Events, Resilience, and Human Progress by John L. Casti Roger D. Jones Michael J. Pennock preface table-of-contents Click to Buy Paperback E-Book Bundled Watch the video.
US Healthcare as a Complex System
Healthcare in the U.S. is complicated. There are dozens of components: hospitals, hospices, assisted living facilities, nursing homes, home care, pharmacies, pharmaceutical companies, the Food and Drug Administration, the Patent Office, specialized physicians, general physicians, physicians assistants, nurses, medical device manufacturers, Medicare, Medicaid, private insurers, self insurers, employers, self-employed, wellness centers, chronic conditions, acute conditions, end-of-life conditions, rare diseases, personalized medicine, cosmetic surgery, concierge medicine, and many more. The complication is impossible for any single person to penetrate or understand.