Astrorelations - Impetus

This is the Mesha Stele. Written around 850 BCE, it was commissioned by King Mesha of Moab, a small nation around what is today Jordan. The basalt stele describes how Chemosh, the god of Moab, had previously been angry with his people and had allowed them to be subjugated to Israel but he eventually returned to his people and helped them gain their freedom from Israel. The stone then details King Mesha’s building projects.

The Mesha Stele roughly agrees with the Israelites version of events in the Books of Kings (2 Kings 3:4–8). Which makes it really, really important historically. The stele is also the most extensive inscription ever recovered that refers to the kingdom of Israel and it bears the earliest certain reference to the Israelite god Yahweh outside of the Bible itself.

I was an ordinary person who studied hard. There's no miracle people!

~ Theoretical physicist Richard Feynman

the most beautiful words in the english language

ineffable — indescribable, unspeakable

eudaemonia — the state of consummate happiness

sumptuous — extremely costly, luxurious, magnificent

nadir — the lowest point (of something abstract)

lassitude —tiredness, lack of energy

scintilla — a spark or a trace of something

aurora — the dawn

quintessential — perfectly typical or representative of a particular kind of person or thing

renaissance — revival

bodacious — remarkable, admirable

ebullience — the quality of excitement and enthusiasm

Potential energy is energy debt borrowed from vacuum energy bank

Potential energy is defined as the energy difference between the energy of an object at a current position and the energy of the object at a reference position (generally, infinitely distant position) in a force field.

The gravitational potential energy of a combination of an object with mass M and another object with mass m separated by distance R is expressed by the following formula using the gravitational constant G.

The potential energy is zero when the distance between objects is infinite, and the negative energy increases as the distance decreases by gravity.

Because there can be no negative energy in the real space, potential energy should be considered as fictitious energy. Regarding potential energy as “energy debt” is easy to understand. Then what do objects borrow energy from? The answer is the vacuum space. Potential energy is the energy debt borrowed from “the vacuum energy bank”. An increase in the negative energy means an increase in the energy given by the vacuum space.

Therefore, the law of conservation of energy is established only when the vacuum energy is counted.

When an object is attracted to another object by gravity, a certain amount of energy is given to it from the vacuum space. Hence its energy debt increases by the amount given from the vacuum space, and its momentum energy increases then it accelerates.

On the contrary, when applying a force to an object and moving it against gravity, it returns a certain amount of energy to the vacuum space. Hence the energy debt decreases by the amount returned to the vacuum space, and its momentum energy decreases then it decelerates from the initial speed.

We say “potential energy increases” when the energy debt decreases, but we should say “potential energy decreases”.

Allegory of the Cave

An Oxford student looking through a book on sale England, 1950

Raging Bear Creek Falls by Andrew Morse