“Wentworth Dog Owners should support Malcolm Turnbull”

I kidd you not. Below is a jpg of an election leaflet I received today - note that it is apparently unauthorised.

Wentworth dog

Mysticism surrounding the number 137

For some reason, the number 137 has obtained mystical significance for some people, particularly in relating to physical reality (although not to physics). It is very natural to attempt to construct order in observing the world (which is what everyone does all the time, and scientists do as their profession). However, the desire to construct order around the number 137 is probably more about mysticism than anything else.

An example of this significance can be found at the following website, which I’ll quote in part below to whet your appetite:

Solar System 1/137      Allow me a few phrases with something of mystery to avoid an inconvenient extension.    It has been said that the Greek sages gave up the cultivation of the technique because they understood that it could distract the fundamental thing. To a tree which produces fruits and branches, fruits and branches cut him, but not the connection with its roots. According to these ideas, the most indispensable thing is the most elementary thing.    The present man could lose the priority sense of the elementary thing (in science, policy, justice), by the cult to the complexity and the technique. With it the hierarchy of the most direct arbitration is lost.   It is natural that the mathematics bother many young men. The mathematical invocations should explain more natural concepts before that concept of specialists.   There are numerous indications that relate the fundamental physics to judgment elements. Know what has not been said.   Though this surprises you, here you will have to find easily connection of an unknown form fractal, a base for some new mathematics, a basis for a structure of the Solar System with identification of fine structure and Pauli exclusion principle.Meanwhile:   In the embryogenese of each animal birth around, millions’ years of evolution continuously reproduce the history of each passage until the being who is born. With the evolutionary generation of organic beings we have the unquestionable evidence of a hierarchy order.

Using mathematics and astronomy in odd religious ideas

For some reason, I was sent the following e-mail. Some people love to connect mathematics, astronomy and religion, and here’s an example.

Click on the link for more in the same vein.

3 (+/-)* Earth/Hell

                        (Earth Mass = 1)

If you’re going to Hell,

Check your reservation:

FrankHatchiii.com

 http://www.FrankHatchiii.com

The CDP’s (Christian Democratic Party’s) policy - “Immediate Suspension of Islamic Immigration”

Yes, I came across a CDP election leaflet on the ground this morning. For some reason, the CDP appears to have leafletted Kings Cross, and has put up a number of posters along William St, advertising it’s black tie clad Senate candidate.

I’m not surprised I didn’t receive the leaflet in my unit block as I can imagine residents throwing it in the bin. The leaflet’s headline is

AUSSIE VALUES

and opening up the leaflet reveals the CDP’s policies, of which the first is:

Immediate Suspension of Islamic Immigration

  

A Liberal Party candidate’s view on science and sexual orientation

I just came across an interesting story at The Age’s website: Homosexuality a perversion, says Lib candidate, which details some of the views of the Liberal Party’s candidate for Lalor, Pastor Peter Curtis. To my mind, the best part of the story is at its end:

He (Peter Curtis) said that, if elected, he would be urging the Liberal Party to introduce intelligent design to state school science classes. Intelligent design is an assertion that certain features of the universe and living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, and not by natural selection.

“I would be very much in favour of intelligent design being taught in public schools,” Mr Curtis said. “Just as the theory of evolution is taught as well — in my view regrettably taught in science classes, because I think it’s a theory and not a science.”

What an insight into the scientific method. And this man wants to help create Commonwealth law. While the Liberal Party would probably be happy for anyone to run in Lalor or other safe ALP seats in the upcoming election, you’d hope they could choose reasonable candidates.

New career direction

Yes, a week and a half ago I started a new job at a different organisation - the Australian Energy Market Commission (www.aemc.gov.au), a government body that writes the Rules for the National Electricity Market and conducts reviews on national energy policies. It’s interesting material for you all economic reformers - the electricity and gas networks are key elements of modern life (imagine the consequences of either drastically failing) and the associated markets are very interesting.

For all those interested in its work, I recommend downloading and reading the documents on its website. I’ve been reading and learning an enormous amount since I started the job and am already working in a project.

Water metering for Qld tenants

An interesting development in Qld - according to the Courier Mail:

LANDLORDS will be able to charge tenants for their water use under legislation to be introduced to Queensland parliament this week, Premier Anna Bligh says.

Cabinet today approved a number of legislative changes dealing with water that will be introduced to parliament this week, and be passed by the end of the year.

Among the changes are new measures aimed at making renters more accountable for their water use, and the banning of any council charges being applied to water from residential rainwater tanks.

The laws will allow landlords who have installed water saving devices - such as dual flush toilets and low-flow shower heads - in their rental properties to have individual meters installed to monitor their tenants’ water use. 

This will hopefully make price signals for water more transparent for tenants - folding water charges into a tenant’s rent makes price signals for water very opaque, which could be problematic when water is so scarce in Brisbane. I have always rented and I fully support direct charging of tenants for their water use and individual water metering. It’s not immediately clear to me how you put the incentives in to encourage landlords to put water-saving devices into units, but perhaps this is what is happening in the last para I quoted from the story.

Government advertising…

Now that a federal election for Nov 24 has been called, I wonder how long it will be before the “educational” government advertising will cease? Opening up yahoo.com.au a moment ago, I was confronted with yet another workchoices job which popped up at me.

2011 Residents’ Association

I was very happy to be recently elected the President of 2011 Residents’ Association Inc., the local residents’ association for the Kings Cross (Potts Pt, Elizabeth Bay and Rushcutters Bay) area. I’m looking forward to an interesting year. 

I don’t see this as an opportunity to intentionally push my particular ideas as to how the local area should be (although that’s inevitable), but rather help 2011RA advocate on behalf of local residents. If any one idea underpins my approach to an issue, it’s that policy should be evidence-based wherever possible.

Colour algebras and colour traces

First year pure mathematics students learn about the trace of a matrix or a linear transformation, and in dealing with Lie superalgebras and quantum superalgebras, one also deals with the supertrace of a linear transformation, which is a generalisation of the usual trace.

A number of people (e.g. David McAnally and Peter Jervis) have looked at colour algebras, which are generalisations of superalgebras. Recall that a superalgebra starts with a Z₂ graded vector space on which one defines a supertrace on linear transformations of the Z₂-graded vector space. With a colour algebra, the idea is to start with a Z_n-graded vector space and define a colour trace on linear transformations of the Z_n-graded vector space.

Colour algebras didn’t go very far as they weren’t seen as very useful - however, I’ve been wondering if they are useful in obtaining new knot invariants, and I’ve been starting to look at Z_n-graded vector spaces and colour traces again.

Colour traces are interesting and non-trival - even properly defining the phase factor one obtains when applying the permutation operation P to tensor products is not straightforward. If one fixes P² = id, one might obtain the usual supertrace (I’m not certain about this) and I’ve started investigating what happens if you don’t fix P² = id.