Waves Passing in the Night

In the history of astronomy, there was a conjecture in the 1760s that the planets orbit the sun in distances that can be described by a simple rule: 

Raise 2 to the power of the planet in sequence:

Multiply that by 3.

To that product add 4.

Divide that sum by 10. 

You get a measurement in “astronomical units” i.e., Earth-distances. And it is almost correct. After Mars, before Jupiter, there needs to be a planet Number 5. Then Jupiter is 6 and Saturn 7. Seeking Planet 5 led to the discovery first of Ceres in 1801, then Pallas (1802), Vesta (1807), and so on; and we are still finding asteroids in that gap. 

Today, the “Titius-Bode Conjecture” is ignored by serious astronomers. It is accepted as an accident of algebra that any small distribution can be described by some formula of arbitrary simplicity. 

Waves Passing in the Night:
Walter Murch in the Land of the
Astrophysicists; Bloomsbury, 2017.

Walter Murch found it compelling. Murch is a musician. He was born in 1943; his family was literate, artistic, and economically comfortable. Young Murch was fascinated by sound and by age 12 he had his own tape recorder. Decades later, he received Academy Awards for working on Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, American Graffiti, and other films. Murch found a deep truth in the Titius-Bode Conjecture. To him, it is evidence of the Music of the Spheres: something that we perceive caused by something deeper, more subtle, that we do not. 

Murch’s biographer, Lawrence Weschler, loves his subject. Weschler is more than fair to Murch’s detractors. No serious astronomer agrees with him. They will not even read his papers to refute them. This is not about medieval geometry: Murch has extended his theory to include wave mechanics as applied to gravity. That led one scientist to ask: “Why do our interplanetary spacecraft not detect such disturbances?” It is a cogent question. 

I snagged this book from my city library’s “De-acquisitioning Bookcase.” (25 cents each, all with their library call numbers on them. What would Eratosthenes say to that?) I took it down because of the title, but it fell open to Ernst Chladni and his waves in sand on a vibrating steel plate. When I worked at the Hands-On Museum in Ann Arbor, this was a learning station in the gallery. I referred to it often when explaining fireworks in the kitchen to mixed audiences. I would say, “We can imagine electrons as little balls with minus-signs orbiting a nucleus, but it is more helpful to think of them like those standing waves of sand, as probability distributions.” 

So, the book seemed complex, over-arching, challenging, and probably wrong, but certainly interesting. And it is all of that. 

Weschler lets Murch do his own advocating. Aside from the necessary explanations, Weschler just points the reader to Murch’s website and other works. For a thin book (150 pages), it stands on eight pages of references. It seemed like a good way to get lost and if I had more time, I might follow that path. 

For now, I am happy to have reinforced my belief that the universe is not merely knowable, it is comfortable. And there is sound in space.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

G. H. Hardy’s “Apology”

Elisha Loomis and the Pythagorean Proposition 

Imaginary Numbers are Real. Pegasus is not. 

The Man Who Loved Only Numbers 

Copying from the Scriptorium to the Cell Phone

The Science Fiction Writers of America publishes a news blog, “Writer Beware.” The July 31, 2026, entry is about changes to the Canon of Ethics of the American Association of Literary Agents. In their summary, the SFWA cites a comment from Publisher’s Weekly: 

“A surprising omission from the revisions is any language addressing AI. According to PW’s article on the revisions, though, this is something the AALA is looking at. Guidelines around AI usage are notably absent from this round of revisions, though AI use ranked as one of the top concerns among agents in a recent AALA survey. [AALA president Regina] Brooks said the AALA has begun circulating information internally and among members, but is “waiting for things to settle out” before formalizing anything.” 

Common chatter about AI is ubiquitous. I am complacent and ambivalent. I do recognize that soon (if not yesterday), an AI is going to sue in court for its rights as an artificial individual under the law, the same any other corporation. Whatever that may bring, for the immediate present, AI is just another computer program, a platform, an environment, no different than Cobol, Python, DuckDuckGo, or Amazon Web Services. Collectively, they are only wider abstractions to encompass concepts. 

It remains that the grammar checker and spellchecker are annoying but convenient. Typeahead is a klaxon for cliches. When you are in a Zoom call (or similar) turn on CC:Closed Captions and see whether and to what extent that program learns the nuances of your specialized vocabulary. 

“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” – Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, (Book I, X “Wages and Profit,” Part I)

Writers and artists worry about losing income to new tools and it is an old problem. When movable type printing was invented copyists were disadvantaged; they rebelled and lost. When all copies were made by hand, it was a nice gift to copy a book and give it to your friend. The ability to produce hundreds or thousands of copies led to copyright laws. 

Until the invention of computers, copying and reading were distinct acts. In his 1985 book, Electronic Life, Michael Crichton asserted that reading with a computer is now identical with copying to a computer. My Apple iPhone connects automatically to my Apple iMac and copies content from one to the other.

During one of several continuing and ironic discussions with friends in the Fandom Association of Central Texas (FACT) about why we ban AI, the comment was made, “All they do is scrape the internet.” 

And what do you do? Does your story have a faster-than-light spaceship with colonists, or does it have dragons, vampires, witches, sorcerers, or does have robots or aliens? 

FACT sponsors the annual ArmadilloCon science fiction convention in Austin. During a Board meeting, discussing upcoming plans, it was said that an invitation to speak and present had been intended for a new popular writer but that as it happens, the writer-artist encourages “fanfic” written by their readers. Moreover, they actively promote and reward the use of AI tools to write and illustrate these offshoot narrations. So, the convention withdrew the invitation. To me, that was wrong of FACT.

On YouTube is a video about a monk learning to use a book. Danish is not required to understand the humor and it is interesting to read the cognates.

It is a cartoon that a proofreader found when my wife was an employee of a large commercial printer and also freelanced, reading over 100 books for Bantam Doubleday. The monk is running into the scriptorium with sweat and exclamation points over his head. He is barely carrying a double armload of scrolls. He says, "It should be celebrate!!"  

Science Fiction Writers of America https://sfwa.org/

SFWA “Writer Beware” blog by Victoria Strauss here: https://writerbeware.blog/2026/07/31/the-aala-makes-significant-updates-to-its-canon-of-ethics/

Publisher’s Weekly comment article here 

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/people/article/100919-major-aala-ethics-update-allows-agents-to-offer-paid-editorial-publicity-services.html

A Brief History of Printing.
Part II: The Economic History of Printing
by Frederick W. Hamilton,
Committee on Eduction, 1918.
From Gutenberg here.

"A Brief History of Printing. Part II: The Economic History of Printing" by Frederick W. Hamilton is a historical account likely written in the early 20th century. The work focuses on the economic dimensions surrounding the printing industry from the advent of printing in the mid-15th century through to the French Revolution in 1789. It delves into government regulations, labor conditions, and the evolving dynamics of the trade guilds impacted by the rise of printing. The opening of this volume introduces a thorough analysis of the printing industry’s economic landscape during a transformative period. It highlights how printers operated largely outside established guild systems, contending with governmental oversight and fluctuating market demands. Hamilton outlines how apprenticeships were structured, exploring the socioeconomic conditions faced by various classes of workers within the industry. He also contextualizes the historical significance of printing as not merely an industrial endeavor but as a pivotal influence on societal thought and subsequent revolutions, setting the stage for a detailed exploration of regulations, labor relations, and the inevitable shifts leading to modernization. (This is an automatically generated summary.)  A Brief History of Printing. Part II: The Economic History of Printing by Frederick W. Hamilton, Committee on Eduction, 1918.  

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

For the Glory of Old Lincoln High 

All Volitional Beings Deserve Rights 

Generative AI: As Big as it is, it is only a Program 

Art & Copy 

Start the Presses 

Hermann Zapf on Alphabets 

Libraries of the Founders 

Five Books about Books 

Goudy by Bernard Lewis and Goudy in His Own Words 

Frank Romano’s History of Desktop Publishing 

Brave New World: How Goodly and Beauteous We Are

All stories are about us, who we are and who we are not. In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley’s message is that if we stopped to consider our lives and our civilization, we would hang ourselves now in shame and sorrow. 

Harry Lloyd as Bernard Marx and 
Jessica Brown Findlay as Lenina Crowne
In the book, Lenina appears once in a sailor suit
with bellbottoms and a cap, in mulberry for Betas.

This is who we were 1932 and who we were becoming. Collectivism was the norm; individualism was dead. Mustapha, Benito, Trotsky, and Hoover were to be the names of the future, the creators of central control and coordination, social stability and individual happiness. Henry Ford was the most successful of the planners. Ford enterprises were vertically integrated. Ford even built communities in the wilderness of Northern Michigan to mill lumber for the floorboards of the automobiles streaming from  his factories for everyone to enjoy. Seeing sawdust piled up, Ford ordered it pressed into bricks for fuel: Kingsford Charcoal. Ours is the year 642 AF and we are Fanny Crowne and Lenina Crowne no less than we are Bernard Marx and John Savage.

World Cup Soccer and Formula 1 

and every person carrying a gaming machine — 

“Real happiness looks squalid 

compared to the overcompensations for misery.” 

(page 221 Harper Collins edition 2017.)

Compelling though Huxley’s warning be, close reading reveals a lack of rigor. Despite the deification of Henry Ford, automation has stopped. Elevators have human operators. Farms with animals produce internal and external secretion even though fetuses are grown with blood surrogate. There is no attempt at colonizing the Antarctic or the seabeds or space exploration or a Lunar colony, even though such efforts would consume resources, which is the prime mover of that society. 

At Eton, an Alpha-double-plus learns Relativity. What is the motivation to learn a theory that was only good for astrophysics? 

Within the castes, individuals are further differentiated: Beta Plus and Alpha Minus, etc.. But they all dress alike and treat each equally according to that caste system. There seems to be no social advantage or deprivation for plusness and minusness. 

Reflecting Huxley’s society and his view of it, Alphas are males and Betas are females. And contrary to one of the basic lessons of hypnopaedia, they mingle. More aligned to the premise of social organization, we never see Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons associating outside of their castes.

Huxley asserts a basic human need for religion. Civilized people have the Solidarity Service and the Arch Community Songster of Canterbury and savages have ceremonies with Jesus and Pookong. Huxley is direct: “It reminds me of a lower-caste Community Sing,” she told Bernard. 

After 600 years of genetic and social conditioning of what use is a Ford Chief Justice? How deep is crime beyond what we saw with Bernard Marx and Helmholtz Watson, settled as Marx says like a coffee klatch? Why is there a Young Women’s Fordian Association, in a society where all women are young? 

A society created for consumption and production must have an accounting system but Huxley delivered almost nothing about economics. There is one reference to the Bank of Europe. Bernard Marx worries that the open tap of eau de cologne will “cost me a fortune.” Marx is given six packets of sex hormone chewing gum as a noticeable politeness. John Savage pays a helicopter pilot but how much and with what the author does not say.  

In the brave new world 70% of females are fertile in order that there be a steady supply of different eggs for the factories that breed humans. We never see their eggs harvested. And how many different males would actually be needed? 

Leonard Nimoy
as Mustapha Mond (1998)

That a society entirely of Alphas would be unstable is an English point of view, an excuse for a class-based society rather than a meritocracy. It could be argued that 600 years after Ford, a totally automated world would be nicely enjoyed by all one million of Alphas. And they could apply Relativity to the problem of space travel. 

I found imperfections in the writing that an editor should have caught. Explaining that the horridly aged Linda was revulsive to all, Huxley says that she “cut no ice” an anachronistic phrase even in 1932. Viewing the native village, they observe “… smoke rising perpendicularly…” How else could it? Did he mean that it was undisturbed by wind? The reservation landscape presents “table topped mesas.” They are called that because “mesa” means “table” in Spanish. 

The characterization of Bernard Marx is the deepest. Marx is actually troubled, which no one else is, except John, of course, and as the theme of the book repeats for our conditioning: automatic happiness is the sine qua non of civilization. 

“… in spite of the fact that his friend's support and sympathy were now his only comfort, Bernard continued perversely to nourish, along with his quite genuine affection, a secret grievance against the Savage, to mediate a campaign of small revenges to be wreaked upon him. …One of the principal functions of a friend is to suffer (in a milder and symbolic form) the punishments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies.

Universal Television NBC 1980
Alphas wear gray, Betas mulberry, Gammas green
Deltas khaki, and Epsilons black, and styles are
fashionable not stark. Also, to the point here: 
no Alpha females, apparently.

“… Bernard's other victim-friend was Helmholtz. When, discomfited, he came and asked once more for the friendship which, in his prosperity, he had not thought it worth his while to preserve. Helmholtz gave it; and gave it without a reproach, without a comment, as though he had forgotten that there had ever been a quarrel. Touched, Bernard felt himself at the same time humiliated by this magnanimity–a magnanimity the more extraordinary and therefore the more humiliating in that it owed nothing to soma and everything to Helmholtz's character. It was the Helmholtz of daily life who forgot and forgave, not the Helmholtz of a half-gramme holiday.”

Huxley admits to individual differences of character among a population that has been carefully conditioned by heredity and environment to be homogenous. That, like religion, may be a fundamental fact of humanity which Huxley announces but does not explore.

"In his apologia for chemistry, The Same and Not the Same, (Columbia University Press, 1995) Nobel laureate Roald Hoffmann asserts that no two hemoglobin molecules are identical. So-called “identical twins” are not. Individualism is objectively real: both empirically knowable and rationally explainable.” Biohackers on NecessaryFacts https://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2012/10/biohackers.html

The book has been adapted to screen with. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World_(1980_film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World_(1998_film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World_(American_TV_series)

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

When Worlds Collide 

This Island Earth 

Recent Science Fiction Reads (14 July 2024) 

Recent Science Fiction Reads (24 July 2024) 

Frankenstein, Rayguns, and Bicycles 

U.S. Military Goes Back to the Future

President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex in his "Farewell Address." 

In Power & Market Murray N. Rothbard showed that no publicly-funded enterprise will be profitable because anything you do for political reasons must result in an economic loss. 

Furthermore, economic calculations derive from the relationship between time and money. Therefore, political choices necessarily result in temporal losses. Whereas businesses plan for the future, governments live in the past. 

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/07/us-seeks-cheaper-hunter-killer-drones-after-iran-destroys-1b-worth-of-reapers/

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/07/us-military-sent-explosive-drone-boats-into-combat-for-the-first-time/

As a consequence of entropy, merging the military with corporate industries did not jump the military to a higher quantum state of better actions from better decision-making. Instead, the corporations became more averse to change and less invested in disruptions from entrepreneurs and "intrapreneurs". 

Jane Jacobs differentiated the guardian mode from the commercial (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_of_Survival) by contrasting 15 behaviors in each. Some of those are approximately analogous and others are obvious opposites.

Jacobs herself was a "democratic socialist" and she emigrated to Canada because Pres. Richard Nixon was elected. Therefore, it is significant that she recognized the Guardian Syndrome as a standard for socialist nations. She meant that normatively, not positively: statistically, not ethically. In other words, Jacobs described what she discovered, not what she sought. 

"What comes out of a team or a committee is the most daring idea that the least daring man can accept." John Arnold. "Space, Time and Education," Astounding Science Fiction, May 1953, pp. 9–25. Introductory remarks by John W. Campbell, Jr., editor, pp. 9–10.

Bob Gesking makes remote-controlled model boats: Home Hobbyist (gallery)

• Updated: Dec. 13, 2012, 2:49 p.m.
• |Published: Dec. 13, 2012, 1:49 p.m.

https://www.cleveland.com/insideout/2012/12/bob_gesking_makes_remote-contr.html

Communities of hobbyists have been building radio-controlled vehicles for the air, land, and water since the early 1950s. Brothers Walter and William Good built and flew their Big Guff in 1938. The idea of a radio controlled aeroplane was tested by the UK military during World War I. 

As political entropy decreases the energies of enterprise, the military becomes ever less advanced. And, generally and broadly considered, that is a good thing. However, that only reflects the more basic truth that we are all getting poorer because of political decisions being made in market contexts and markets being subsumed by political operations.

The best society separates power and market for the same reasons that it separates church and state. 

[13 April 2013] "The influential head of Google, Eric Schmidt, has called for civilian drone technology to be regulated, warning about privacy and security concerns. Cheap miniature versions of the unmanned aircraft used by militaries could fall into the wrong hands, he told the UK's Guardian newspaper.  Quarrelling neighbours, he suggested, might end up buzzing each other with private surveillance drones.  He also warned of the risk of terrorists using the new technology.  Mr Schmidt is believed to have close relations with US President Barack Obama, whom he advises on matters of science and technology.” -- BBC Technology News here Touted on Slashdot here

https://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2013/04/drones-are-everywhere.html

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

The Audacity of Enterprise

Why a Level Playing Field?

Leadership 

Shifting the Paradigm of Private Security