New Journey

I have begun a new journey to find Inertia and Mass. What are their secrets and why have they been so elusive to scientists?

My journey is taking me into high levels of math, chemistry (physical) and physics (quantum) as I think they will lead to answers.

I am excited. My brain hurts....

Balancing Chemical Equations

Today, I realized one thing I do automaically by instinct that makes balancing chemical equations easier. First, I assess my even number verus the odd ones. In other words if I have a reactant that has an even number of oxygens but the products have oxygen in only water, then it is an even to odd situation. This menas that I must 6 (which is 2 times 3) or 12 (which has 3 times four) or some other even/odd multiplication product. I would put an clear example but Blogger does do allow subscripts. So following is a rough example with "v" used before the number to indicate a subscript.

Unbalanced equation:

NHv3 + Ov2 ---> NO + Hv2O

Note that there are 2 oxygens on the left anf 3 oxygens on the right so there is an even/odd situation. Only one of the products has nitrogen and only one has hydrogen, but they are together without any oxygen in the reactants. I decide to use 12 which gives me the options of 3 times 4 and 6 times 2.

4NHv3 + 5Ov2 ---> 4NO + 6Hv2O

Balanced!

Clean Your PC

I am a PC so I do not know how to "clean" a MAC after going out on the Internet. Here is a good idea for PCs:

Every time you finished going out to the net, go to your Internet Options on your Control Panel (I have a shortcut on my Desktop as I follow these instructions OFTEN). On the General tab, under the Browsing History area, I have selected the Delete History on Exit. To clean your PC, click the Delete... button. Make sure the Preserve Favorites Website data is NOT selected, then selected every option on the lower list. Then hit the delete key. Following this procedure helps reduce cookies and trackers installed on your PC by various web sites.

As an additional aside, never ever store passwords for sites on the site. Always type it in every time you go there.

Switching

The poles are switching. The switching process will accelerate as the magnetic pole nears the equator. The storms, earthquakes, etc. are due to the switching process so how bad will it get? Perhaps the Mayan s were correct. We will have to see what this hurricane season is like. My instincts tell me that hurricanes will actually be fewer in number and less intense. We will have to see.

Randomness

James Gleick's book Chaos: Making a New Science is a great book. It is also making me wonder about randomness. Does random behavior actually exists? Or is it actually a complex system with a pattern that is difficult for us to discern?

Prime times Prime

Unable to paint today due to a sinus infection, I have been analyzing prime number patterns. As others before me have already done, I am trying to discern a pattern in the ending digits, which are always 1,3, 7 and 9 (excluding the two 2 "weird" primes of 2 and 5). I realized something fun - not Earth shattering - probably realized before by countless others but still fun for me. All primes multiplied by themselves obviously result in a non-prime number; but what is interesting is that the resulting number always end with either 1 or 9!

Photos Memories

I have been working on a painting from a photo of the Outer Banks in NC that I took back in the 1980s.

Funny how I can still remember that day. My first dog, a Springer, was with me. It was windy, with sand blowing everywhere. It was beautiful and I was so happy being there with my best friend.

Food and Dogs

For years I have known that chocolate kills dogs (and in a very unpredictable fashion) but I just found out that grapes (and raisins) shut down their kidneys. Garlic and onions strip red blood cells from their blood. Macadamia nuts are also harmful.

Poor dogs. No more bits of Pepperidge Farm Raisin and Cinnamon Swirl bread....

Mahjong Scoring

Mahjong Titans scoring is an enigma. Microsoft does not even have much on it. They do state that extra points can be gained by cancelling pairs in the same row. this would explain why my scores are much higher on turtle than nay other layout - there are simply more rows!

Mahjong Spider

As with the crab, the mahjong spider layout can best be won by working the stacks on the spider's "feet" against the stacks on the spider's "body".

Mahjong Crab

In mahjong crab, working the "feet", from top down, against the center stacks on the crab's "body" clears the tiles fairly quickly.

Mahjong Fortress

Similar to the dragon layout, the mahjong fortress layout has a lot of "stacking" of the tiles. Again, same as with the dragon layout, the fastest way to clear all of the tiles is to focus on the tiles at the ends of the long horizontal rows, and the inside tiles of each square.

Mahjong Cat

In mahjong cat layout, the fastest way to win is to play the tiles on the cat's "body" against the "tail" tiles and the "head" tiles. Once all of these pairs have been eliminated, then focus on the body.

Mahjong Dragon

The best way to beat this game is by clearing the tiles at the row ends first. This seems obvious but it is not quite that simple. Rows end tiles are even more important than the top tile as in the stacks. The dragon's "mouth" has three end tiles but only two are very important to clear first - the ones at the top and bottom of the triad.

Mahjong Turtle

The turtle arrangement of computer mahjong can be best,and fastest solved by the following strategies:

• If all four matching tiles are unblocked clear them all in any order.
• If you have a choice, try to match tiles that are in the center stacked area with ones on the edges. this way, both will be decreased as you progress which is required for winning.
• If you can not clear one of the center stacked tiles with an outer edge tile, then clear the center stacked ones first and then wait to clear the outer edge tiles.

Mahjong and Wikipedia

When it comes to computer mahjong, Wikipedia simply has some things wrong! Not all layouts are equal in difficulty! Fortress and Dragon are definitely more difficult than the others. I am not even sure if they all have the same scoring scheme; but perhaps that is because I am slower at some arrangements than others.

All arrangements seem to be solvable 100% of the time if you use CTRL Z to redo until you get it solved. Redoing to a solution requires remembering the arrangement of the tiles and analyzing what is required to win.

I have also figured out that if all four related tiles are unblocked, you might as well clear them out as the order in which you clear them will not matter in reaching a solution. Following posts will cover a possible strategy for each arrangment to increase your score.

Creating Dark Green

During the summer of 2008, I took a painting class at the local community college. At the same time, I was studying the works of John Singer Sargent and noticed that he often used a very dark green background for his pieces such as "Lily, Lily, Rose". I did a bunch of paintings with this dark green background ("Study on Sargent's Poppies" is on the right.)

I am beginning a new painting, "Ketones 1" that will be done similarly to "Study on Sargent's Poppies" but I could not remember exactly what I did to create the dark green. I googled and found a recommendation to add black to the green. I practically never use black, so I was sure this was not what I did. After some thought, I remembered mid-tone green and mid-tone red make charcoal grey. So, if I add a little more green than red, would I have dark green?

It worked! And created a very rich wonderful dark green - much darker in value than each of the two original colors in fact. I will have to experiment with complimentary colors more!

Beauty of Math and Science Series

I have never felt so close to my art before this series. And yet, I do not feel the emotional closeness that sometimes prevents me from selling a piece. Each piece so far has been a challenging intellectual adventure! I look forward to working on them each and every day. They also give me a wonderful excuse to study math and science along with art! What a wonderful combination....

Sound 1

Although battling eye pain for days now, "Sound 1" is turning out really great. I am using the concept from a painting I did in the 1980s but it is working beautifully for this new series. Nice to love what you do!

Alien Life

A common TV sci-fi theme is: an Earth space probe, or such, goes into the depths of space and brings back a deadly virus or bacteria thus creating wide-spread havoc here on Earth. What are the chances?

Years ago, I read Lewis Thomas' book, "Lives of a Cell". Thomas makes an excellent point about the small chance that alien life could impact life here on Earth. In order for it to impact Earth-life, it would have to have DNA (or RNA) similar to ours. The chances that on a separate planet located in the reaches of space the same genetic structure would evolve are so tiny that, ... well ... probably wouldn't happen. And it is through either DNA or RNA that the various microbes interact with us either giving us a cold or the flu or a sinus infection, etc.

So here is an idea for a great sci-fi novel: the sands here on Earth, and they are vast, begin to disappear. And, of course, it is an alien life form that was causing the destruction! The impact og losing our sand would much greater than you might think. In fact, sand is so important that Saudi Arabia had to import some from the US years ago for industrial uses -- their sand was too fine to use. Food for thought.