Apparently, I still have more to say about the PPACA. Specifically, after listening to coverage of the arguments before the Court this week from a variety of sources, a particular element of the discussion struck a chord with me. One which I didn't like at all. And one which surprised me greatly, as this element seemed to most frequently crop up in coverage from sources which lean liberal.
Throughout the week, much of the coverage from the left seems almost dismissive about the case, as though the constitutionality of the individual mandate was obvious on its face. And especially surprising was that I was hearing this from figures who have struck me as intelligent and insightful; people who generally don't condense complex issues down to parrotable talking points. Here, I am thinking specifically of figures like the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, Jonathan Cohn over at The New Republic, many, many, many political bloggers from Mother Jones and The Huffington Post. Now, as I said, I to have a great deal of respect for these people: this is my way of gently rebuking them for failing to live up to their own reputations.
Not that any of them will ever actually read this, of course...
Alright. Looking at the case for and against the mandate. Firstly, I would like to be quite clear on one point: the individual mandate is not a tax. Because if it were, the 1867 Anti-Injunction Act would prohibit the Court from hearing a suit brought against it until 2015, when the penalty comes due.
Unless the mandate isn't a tax, but is an exercise of the taxing power, with the Act applying to the former, but not the later. Or unless it is a tax, but the Anti-Injunction Act isn't jurisdictional in nature. Or some combination of all of these things.
I hope that you can already see that this is not a trivial question: the very nature of the argument we employ to justify the mandate raises questions about whether the case can even be heard. As the application of the Anti-Injunction Act represents a mostly irrelevant complication---if it applies, we simply reschedule this whole debate to be continued in three years---I'm going to ignore it, but not the question of whether the mandate could be justified as an exercise of the taxing power.
Article I, Section 8 declares "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts
and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States..." The Court has held Congress' power to lay taxes has essentially no limits, beyond those explicitly stated in the Constitution (and of those, the only remaining operative limitation is a prohibition against taxing exports), while the power to provide for the general welfare is held to authorize Congress to spend the revenues it collects however it wishes, so long as the spending can be justified as serving some broad, national interest. This is, for example, how Congress derives its authority to spend money on education or energy or conservation. Hence, if the mandate can be identified as an exercise of the power to tax and spend, its constitutionality is almost assured. Unfortunately, this also makes it very difficult to justify the mandate as an exercise of this power, as it fits very poorly into the usual paradigm.
Consider these two scenarios. In one, Congress raises everyone's taxes by an amount equal to the penalty they would have to pay in 2015 and simultaneously authorizes a tax credit of equal size, the receipt of which is conditioned on providing proof of possession of a certain minimum standard of health insurance coverage. In the other, Congress may or may not raise taxes, but does authorize a vast spending program to reimburse or directly finance healthcare expenditures for every citizen. Both of these measures would be on incredibly firm constitutional ground: Congress could accomplish the former by modifying an existing tax--thus skirting the question of whether a separate tax would be constitutional; tax credits, subsidies and incentives are, of course, as common as rain and nearly as constitutional--and it could accomplish the latter by dropping the eligibility requirements for Medicare/Medicaid--programs which have already been tested and which passed legal muster. The former is Congress creating something like the mandate through its power to tax
The trick is, the mandate is neither of these things. It's certainly not an example of spending--the penalty is paid by those to whom it applies--but it's also not really a tax: a tax is attached to various forms of economic activity (this has nothing to do with the activity vs. inactivity debate; that comes later) but the mandate instead is attached to a particular state of being. Every tax you can think of is attached in some way to a transaction: receiving an income, making a purchase, etc. The mandate instead acts like an inverted subsidy (a thing which does attach itself to states of being), and it's not clear at all where such a creature properly resides in the framework of taxing and spending. On the taxation side we have the dichotomy of taxes and subsidies (pay us bleep for doing blop unless blap, in which case pay less) and on the spending side we have a dichotomy of disbursement and penalties (we'll give you bleep to do blop unless blap in which case we pay you less); but the mandate possess neither the taxation-like qualities of the former nor the associated spending program needed for the latter.
To be sure, Article I only directs Congress to provide for the general welfare which does not necessarily entail that Congress can only spend money on the general welfare: maybe in some cases the general welfare could be provided for more effectively by taking money instead, thus making mandates like these the stick to the subsidy's carrot. But this would represent a nearly unprecedented expansion of federal authority: without some overarching limiting principle, it's difficult to see how any constraints on Congressional power could be sustained, given that now every quality of life previously divorced from economic activity is now open to effective taxation and as Chief Justice Marshall phrased it "the power to tax involves the power to destroy."
This, by the way, is the thought process behind the Right's "Broccoli Mandate" argument. And yes, I am very aware that the "state of being" subject to the penalty is at most only one step removed from unquestionably taxable (and, in fact, taxed) economic activity. But that's the argument as I see it.
This post is now quite long enough, so I'll leave it be for now. Next time, I'll talk about the relationship between the mandate and the commerce clause, and, if all goes well, explain the reasons why the mandate might indeed be constitutional. Later.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
About the PPACA
Well, I said that I wasn't going to be posting about politics. But fortunately this is about policy!
There's a difference. I swear.
Anyways. As some of you may (and all of you should) know the PPACA--Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare to the current crop of Presidential hopefuls and RomnObamacare to anyone who knows anything about the act's history--is up before the Supreme Court this week. But I'm not really going to talk about that. Instead, I'm going to address something which annoys me deeply: conservatives who oppose the bill's individual mandate. If you are even even slightly opposed to a national or government-run healthcare system (in any of its forms), you CAN'T be against the individual mandate. It literally defies logic. Here's how the reasoning works.
First, it is an undeniable fact that a healthcare system exists in this country. If you don't believe me, call your doctor. If he (or she) answers, he (or she) exists: there's your healthcare system.
Okay, tongue removed from cheek now.
Given that there's a healthcare system, we can either change something about it or leave it alone. Let's assume we want to change something about it. Specifically, let's look at how we change access.
In this country, the access portal is insurance. Even the public systems of Medicare and Medicaid provide no services themselves: they merely reimburse private providers, thus making them a form of (free) insurance. Hence, to increase access, we can either (A) expand the list of the insured or (B) scrap the insurance model and replace it with something with broader reach. Since I'm guessing that most conservatives don't like the idea of the government arbitrarily abolishing an entire private industry, then let's go with (A).
Bit #1: The insurance we're giving to the newly enrolled will either be from private insurance companies or else the government can bankroll it. Let's say that the new insurance is private. The private health insurance market in this country is healthy and thriving. It is also (as all markets are) out to make a profit. If insuring the currently uninsured were profitable, the insurance companies would already be insuring them. Hence, the new law has to force insurance companies to agree to cover people who would be bad investments from an actuarial standpoint: the insurance companies can no longer deny insurance to or inflate the premiums for clients with preexisting conditions or on the basis of their age or geographic location.
Bit #2: If all we do is force the insurance companies to make bad investments, we will destroy the insurance industry. If the insurance companies have to ensure me in sickness and in health, then it makes no economic sense for me to carry insurance when I'm healthy. And since the insurance companies can't charge me more for being sick before buying insurance, then the entire economic model of insurance collapses: they need lots and lots of healthy people paying into the system--the technical term is the "risk pool"--so that they can cover the sick people and make a profit. If all the healthy people forgo insurance, then, in the lingo of the biz, we've "fractured the risk pool". In order to avoid this catastrophe, we include a shared responsibility requirement: we force healthy people who could now forgo insurance to purchase it anyway.
Bit #3: We recognize that if we're now making everyone buy something, they might not all be able to afford it. So we include some subsidies to ease the economic burden.
The combination of Bits 1 (Guaranteed Issue and Community Ratings), 2 (the Individual Mandate), & 3 (Subsidies) is the PPACA (the guts of it, anyway). Hence, IF we want to (A) both retain the current model of private insurance AND (B) expand access to it, then our ONLY option is the PPACA model.
Therefore, anyone who disagrees with the PPACA model is either in favor of doing nothing at all, or else is in favor of abandoning private insurance altogether.
P.S. I would like to point out that noting of what I just said is sufficient to determine whether the individual mandate is constitutional: to couch the issue in relevant terms, while the individual mandate is inarguably necessary--at least, for the PPACA model, itself an entirely reasonable extension of Congress's power over interstate commerce--it might not be proper. I haven't yet been able to decide this myself. Also, literally everyone involved agrees that if Congress had flavored the Individual Mandate as a tax, its constitutionality would be entirely unquestionable.
Anyone who wishes to dispute my reasoning is heartily invited to do so in the comments.
EDIT: The wonderfully insightful Dr. Aaron Carroll has set me straight on whether or not the mandate is truly essential to this style of healthcare reform; in fact, there are other ways of averting the "adverse selection death spiral", while still ensuring an expansion of the eligibility pool. However, most of these measures are would be less effective than a simple mandate.
There's a difference. I swear.
Anyways. As some of you may (and all of you should) know the PPACA--Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare to the current crop of Presidential hopefuls and RomnObamacare to anyone who knows anything about the act's history--is up before the Supreme Court this week. But I'm not really going to talk about that. Instead, I'm going to address something which annoys me deeply: conservatives who oppose the bill's individual mandate. If you are even even slightly opposed to a national or government-run healthcare system (in any of its forms), you CAN'T be against the individual mandate. It literally defies logic. Here's how the reasoning works.
First, it is an undeniable fact that a healthcare system exists in this country. If you don't believe me, call your doctor. If he (or she) answers, he (or she) exists: there's your healthcare system.
Okay, tongue removed from cheek now.
Given that there's a healthcare system, we can either change something about it or leave it alone. Let's assume we want to change something about it. Specifically, let's look at how we change access.
In this country, the access portal is insurance. Even the public systems of Medicare and Medicaid provide no services themselves: they merely reimburse private providers, thus making them a form of (free) insurance. Hence, to increase access, we can either (A) expand the list of the insured or (B) scrap the insurance model and replace it with something with broader reach. Since I'm guessing that most conservatives don't like the idea of the government arbitrarily abolishing an entire private industry, then let's go with (A).
Bit #1: The insurance we're giving to the newly enrolled will either be from private insurance companies or else the government can bankroll it. Let's say that the new insurance is private. The private health insurance market in this country is healthy and thriving. It is also (as all markets are) out to make a profit. If insuring the currently uninsured were profitable, the insurance companies would already be insuring them. Hence, the new law has to force insurance companies to agree to cover people who would be bad investments from an actuarial standpoint: the insurance companies can no longer deny insurance to or inflate the premiums for clients with preexisting conditions or on the basis of their age or geographic location.
Bit #2: If all we do is force the insurance companies to make bad investments, we will destroy the insurance industry. If the insurance companies have to ensure me in sickness and in health, then it makes no economic sense for me to carry insurance when I'm healthy. And since the insurance companies can't charge me more for being sick before buying insurance, then the entire economic model of insurance collapses: they need lots and lots of healthy people paying into the system--the technical term is the "risk pool"--so that they can cover the sick people and make a profit. If all the healthy people forgo insurance, then, in the lingo of the biz, we've "fractured the risk pool". In order to avoid this catastrophe, we include a shared responsibility requirement: we force healthy people who could now forgo insurance to purchase it anyway.
Bit #3: We recognize that if we're now making everyone buy something, they might not all be able to afford it. So we include some subsidies to ease the economic burden.
The combination of Bits 1 (Guaranteed Issue and Community Ratings), 2 (the Individual Mandate), & 3 (Subsidies) is the PPACA (the guts of it, anyway). Hence, IF we want to (A) both retain the current model of private insurance AND (B) expand access to it, then our ONLY option is the PPACA model.
Therefore, anyone who disagrees with the PPACA model is either in favor of doing nothing at all, or else is in favor of abandoning private insurance altogether.
P.S. I would like to point out that noting of what I just said is sufficient to determine whether the individual mandate is constitutional: to couch the issue in relevant terms, while the individual mandate is inarguably necessary--at least, for the PPACA model, itself an entirely reasonable extension of Congress's power over interstate commerce--it might not be proper. I haven't yet been able to decide this myself. Also, literally everyone involved agrees that if Congress had flavored the Individual Mandate as a tax, its constitutionality would be entirely unquestionable.
Anyone who wishes to dispute my reasoning is heartily invited to do so in the comments.
EDIT: The wonderfully insightful Dr. Aaron Carroll has set me straight on whether or not the mandate is truly essential to this style of healthcare reform; in fact, there are other ways of averting the "adverse selection death spiral", while still ensuring an expansion of the eligibility pool. However, most of these measures are would be less effective than a simple mandate.
Friday, March 2, 2012
For Fred--The Surprise BONUS Post
By way of apologizing for not posting anything, for-like-ever, I'm republishing the story that started this whole thing. Enjoy. :)
In the beginning was the Song. There was always the Song. Eternal. A dance from discords to concords, melodies blending, entwining, crashing, roaring, whispering, pounding, driving. Singing in the night.
Here, in this place, the music has be quiet for a while. Never gone, of course; the pulses and rhythms always remain. But now a new line begins to build among the whispers. First, a great, deep but almost inaudible hum, which settled down to a slow, regular thrumming. The line begins to swirl in a great circle; at first trying to fling the notes out into the deep, hungry darkness. But the melody is drawn inward, ever inward. Sweeping out their great arcs of sound, the strains spiraling in on themselves, building dissonances, piling subtle clashes until it seems no resolution can possibly break the tension. And then in a great brassy, blare: the joyous proclamation, the great sounding-forth that "I AM!"
Now the theme begins to settle. At first some slithery zitherings, a thunderclap or two and contrapuntal lines crossing, but as the eons pass, he settles down to a steady throb, a rolling, purposeful and stately march, neither exuberantly giddy nor excessively somber but blending the best qualities of both. He reaches out to the Singers around it, binding itself into the tapestry of sound. He samples the others, reveling in the variety and uniqueness of each tune: singers with vast ranges in strength, some who hold choirs billions-strong in thrall. Some who swoop by in a great whoosh of sound. Some who stay and blend their melodies with him for a while. But all exquisitely beautiful. Even the song that underlies all the others: the Song of The Darkness Itself. A high, cold, proud, cruel song of death, of endings and of the inevitable Great Silence which will come at the end of all things. But sometimes he hears piercing through in that song's quietest moments a faint sound of loneliness, a longing that things could be other than they are: long wished for, never fulfilled.
So the Song continued through the ages, punctuated by the rapid comings and goings of smaller motifs, but always held fast by the sweep and majesty of great melodies like himself. Until all at once sounded a great Call. And the Call spoke to him and named him and ask his help. And he assented.
Suddenly, he was elsewhere in the Song, among singers more rapid and excitable than he had ever thought possible. He sang back to them: strange, they were. Strident and often thrusting their melodies together harshly, but coming back into accord just as quickly. Yes, quick was indeed the word for them: developments which elsewhere would have defined entire epochs passed here sooner then moments. As always, there was the Song of the Dark Singer: as always, high, cold, proud and cruel. But even that was different here. More confident, sure of itself. The strains of triumph seemed stronger here, as if victory was within Its grasp. Yet, if the triumphs were more pronounced, it seemed as though when It was defeated here, those defeats were as complete as Its victories seemed assured. Different too was the interplay between the Songs. Where he had been, the strife was a clash of melody against melody, with the stronger song banishing the weaker. Here, the strife was a series of advances and reversals: the Dark Singer would build a great chorus until Its song would seem to overwhelm all others; then, one of their singers would take the Dark Singer's theme and blend it with their song, turning it back on the Dark Singer's symphony bringing it to a totally unexpected but triumphant finale in which even the Dark Singer's screams of frustration were transformed into a graceful aria.
A strange place indeed.
And so the moment's began to accelerate, traveling with the Singers-Who-Sung-Together, those who had sent out the Call. They sang with each other and learned of each other. They were new singers, just exploring the Song for the first time. It wasn't easy for them, for this was one of the rare places where the Singers-Must-Keep-Silent. And then, as always happens to new singers, they all found themselves thrust against the Dark Singer Itself and in one of the places that sang only Its song. It had stolen the Bright Book of Melodies! Trading with the Jealous-Singer-Who-Hoards a Dark Book for the Bright One, they escape back to their own world pursued by the Dark Singer Itself. Striving melody against melody, they sing from the Bright Book to remind the world of the Song it is supposed to sing. And then the Dark Singer rose up and Extinguished their great singer!
The Darkness quaked with mirthless, noiseless laughter. A great Silence fell. Looking at the Singers-Who-Sung-Together, He-Who-Came-From-Far-Away sang out one small word.
"No."
And from him burst forth a Song such as never he had ever Sung. He sang Defiance. He sang Joy. He sang Brilliance and Fierceness and Life. And in his song grew the strains of the Great Song from which all other songs proceed, pouring into it and drawing out of him until he had nothing left to sing. And yet still he sang. Rising higher, grander he guided the song to its shining, shimmering climax so powerful as to drown out all other songs and so beautiful as to break the heart of the Darkness Itself.
And with that final note of total triumph, he winked out and sang no more.
In the beginning was the Song. There was always the Song. Eternal. A dance from discords to concords, melodies blending, entwining, crashing, roaring, whispering, pounding, driving. Singing in the night.
Here, in this place, the music has be quiet for a while. Never gone, of course; the pulses and rhythms always remain. But now a new line begins to build among the whispers. First, a great, deep but almost inaudible hum, which settled down to a slow, regular thrumming. The line begins to swirl in a great circle; at first trying to fling the notes out into the deep, hungry darkness. But the melody is drawn inward, ever inward. Sweeping out their great arcs of sound, the strains spiraling in on themselves, building dissonances, piling subtle clashes until it seems no resolution can possibly break the tension. And then in a great brassy, blare: the joyous proclamation, the great sounding-forth that "I AM!"
Now the theme begins to settle. At first some slithery zitherings, a thunderclap or two and contrapuntal lines crossing, but as the eons pass, he settles down to a steady throb, a rolling, purposeful and stately march, neither exuberantly giddy nor excessively somber but blending the best qualities of both. He reaches out to the Singers around it, binding itself into the tapestry of sound. He samples the others, reveling in the variety and uniqueness of each tune: singers with vast ranges in strength, some who hold choirs billions-strong in thrall. Some who swoop by in a great whoosh of sound. Some who stay and blend their melodies with him for a while. But all exquisitely beautiful. Even the song that underlies all the others: the Song of The Darkness Itself. A high, cold, proud, cruel song of death, of endings and of the inevitable Great Silence which will come at the end of all things. But sometimes he hears piercing through in that song's quietest moments a faint sound of loneliness, a longing that things could be other than they are: long wished for, never fulfilled.
So the Song continued through the ages, punctuated by the rapid comings and goings of smaller motifs, but always held fast by the sweep and majesty of great melodies like himself. Until all at once sounded a great Call. And the Call spoke to him and named him and ask his help. And he assented.
Suddenly, he was elsewhere in the Song, among singers more rapid and excitable than he had ever thought possible. He sang back to them: strange, they were. Strident and often thrusting their melodies together harshly, but coming back into accord just as quickly. Yes, quick was indeed the word for them: developments which elsewhere would have defined entire epochs passed here sooner then moments. As always, there was the Song of the Dark Singer: as always, high, cold, proud and cruel. But even that was different here. More confident, sure of itself. The strains of triumph seemed stronger here, as if victory was within Its grasp. Yet, if the triumphs were more pronounced, it seemed as though when It was defeated here, those defeats were as complete as Its victories seemed assured. Different too was the interplay between the Songs. Where he had been, the strife was a clash of melody against melody, with the stronger song banishing the weaker. Here, the strife was a series of advances and reversals: the Dark Singer would build a great chorus until Its song would seem to overwhelm all others; then, one of their singers would take the Dark Singer's theme and blend it with their song, turning it back on the Dark Singer's symphony bringing it to a totally unexpected but triumphant finale in which even the Dark Singer's screams of frustration were transformed into a graceful aria.
A strange place indeed.
And so the moment's began to accelerate, traveling with the Singers-Who-Sung-Together, those who had sent out the Call. They sang with each other and learned of each other. They were new singers, just exploring the Song for the first time. It wasn't easy for them, for this was one of the rare places where the Singers-Must-Keep-Silent. And then, as always happens to new singers, they all found themselves thrust against the Dark Singer Itself and in one of the places that sang only Its song. It had stolen the Bright Book of Melodies! Trading with the Jealous-Singer-Who-Hoards a Dark Book for the Bright One, they escape back to their own world pursued by the Dark Singer Itself. Striving melody against melody, they sing from the Bright Book to remind the world of the Song it is supposed to sing. And then the Dark Singer rose up and Extinguished their great singer!
The Darkness quaked with mirthless, noiseless laughter. A great Silence fell. Looking at the Singers-Who-Sung-Together, He-Who-Came-From-Far-Away sang out one small word.
"No."
And from him burst forth a Song such as never he had ever Sung. He sang Defiance. He sang Joy. He sang Brilliance and Fierceness and Life. And in his song grew the strains of the Great Song from which all other songs proceed, pouring into it and drawing out of him until he had nothing left to sing. And yet still he sang. Rising higher, grander he guided the song to its shining, shimmering climax so powerful as to drown out all other songs and so beautiful as to break the heart of the Darkness Itself.
And with that final note of total triumph, he winked out and sang no more.
So I Had A Post Here..
But it disappeared. It took me hours and hours to write: I'd been working on various versions of it basically since my last post went up. I finally got it into what I thought might be a finished form at 9 PM, last night, and saved it, thinking I'd give it a last once-over for polishing and probably a few teaks to the wording here and there before publishing it.
And it was all gone. Every last word.
I didn't know what to do. I'm already behind schedule, so I had to post something. But I really don't want to go back and rewrite all of that yet. So instead, I'm going to talk about a discovery I made in writing that last post: writing about physics is really frickin' hard! No, seriously; its probably the hardest thing I've ever tried to do in my entire life. If I try to be complete, the writer in me bemoans the excessive length. If I try to be succinct, the educator in me lectures that no one's going to understand what I'm saying. If I try to be clever, the physicist in me rants that I'm skating by essential details.
Anyway, this whole experience has been somewhat discouraging. If I had to pick what I considered my two strongest skills, they would most definitely be physics and writing. That I can't seem to find an elegant way to combine them has sharply called into question my abilities both as a writer and as a physicist. If I'm as good a writer as I think I am, why can't I find a way to cleanly and elegantly convey the physics I'm trying to discuss? And if I'm as good a physicist as I think I am, why don't I seem to understand it well enough to write about it?
Fortunately for you readers, small doses of self-doubt and frustration seem to provide fertile ground for posts. Expect to see more on this topic in the future. My friend Lisa suggested I should just bite the bullet and serialize the physics posts. Since she's usually right about, well, everything, that's what I'll probably end up doing. The essential worry is that on the one hand, I don't want to be fifteen posts to developing a single topic, while one the other hand I don't want to be opening my posts with something along the lines of "Today, I want to talk about the polhode of a torque-free, rotating, rigid body, which, as every good physicist knows, rolls without slipping on the herpolhode lying in the invariable plane"*.
Next time, I will probably talk about Minority Report, having finally watched it for the first time.
Until then, may your moments of self-doubt and frustration also prove constructive.
*I didn't make that up, by the way. There really is a thing called the polhode: it's the path traced out by angular velocity vector of of a freely-rotating, rigid body on the body's inertia ellipsoid. A theorem of classical physics called Poinsot's Construction shows that as the inertia ellipsoid rotates with the body, the polhode rolls without slipping on a single fixed plane: the curve traced out by the point of contact between the polhode and the plane is the herpolhode. It's a piece of knowledge which holds the dubious honor of being both singularly useful and singularly useless. Useful in the sense that it shows that the range of motion of a freely-rotating body is much more severely constrained than it might appear, but useless in the sense that it is always more convenient to work from the constraints themselves to find the motion of the body, rather than trying to extract the motion from this construction.
And it was all gone. Every last word.
I didn't know what to do. I'm already behind schedule, so I had to post something. But I really don't want to go back and rewrite all of that yet. So instead, I'm going to talk about a discovery I made in writing that last post: writing about physics is really frickin' hard! No, seriously; its probably the hardest thing I've ever tried to do in my entire life. If I try to be complete, the writer in me bemoans the excessive length. If I try to be succinct, the educator in me lectures that no one's going to understand what I'm saying. If I try to be clever, the physicist in me rants that I'm skating by essential details.
Anyway, this whole experience has been somewhat discouraging. If I had to pick what I considered my two strongest skills, they would most definitely be physics and writing. That I can't seem to find an elegant way to combine them has sharply called into question my abilities both as a writer and as a physicist. If I'm as good a writer as I think I am, why can't I find a way to cleanly and elegantly convey the physics I'm trying to discuss? And if I'm as good a physicist as I think I am, why don't I seem to understand it well enough to write about it?
Fortunately for you readers, small doses of self-doubt and frustration seem to provide fertile ground for posts. Expect to see more on this topic in the future. My friend Lisa suggested I should just bite the bullet and serialize the physics posts. Since she's usually right about, well, everything, that's what I'll probably end up doing. The essential worry is that on the one hand, I don't want to be fifteen posts to developing a single topic, while one the other hand I don't want to be opening my posts with something along the lines of "Today, I want to talk about the polhode of a torque-free, rotating, rigid body, which, as every good physicist knows, rolls without slipping on the herpolhode lying in the invariable plane"*.
Next time, I will probably talk about Minority Report, having finally watched it for the first time.
Until then, may your moments of self-doubt and frustration also prove constructive.
*I didn't make that up, by the way. There really is a thing called the polhode: it's the path traced out by angular velocity vector of of a freely-rotating, rigid body on the body's inertia ellipsoid. A theorem of classical physics called Poinsot's Construction shows that as the inertia ellipsoid rotates with the body, the polhode rolls without slipping on a single fixed plane: the curve traced out by the point of contact between the polhode and the plane is the herpolhode. It's a piece of knowledge which holds the dubious honor of being both singularly useful and singularly useless. Useful in the sense that it shows that the range of motion of a freely-rotating body is much more severely constrained than it might appear, but useless in the sense that it is always more convenient to work from the constraints themselves to find the motion of the body, rather than trying to extract the motion from this construction.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
The First Post
Alright. I feel that the response to my short story was sufficiently positive that I'm going to give this a try. So I'm throwing this up here as a sort-of introduction/explainer-thingy about what I think I'm going to do with this.
The genesis of this blog is actually really simple: for a very long time I have been thinking thoughts about a lot of different things and really haven't felt like nearly enough of those thoughts have the opportunity to be expressed externally. Now, despite my excessive love of the sound of my own voice and my great attachment to the quality of my own ideas, I might've been able to just live with this. Except that, particularly in recent years, I have found myself continually thinking the same thoughts; I'm resisting using words like "convergence" or "brilliant inspiration", because that isn't at all what was going on here. It was more that these thoughts, in that wonderfully endearing passive-aggressive way of theirs, made it quite clear to me that if I did not find a way to get them out of my head, they were going to do their level best to drive me completely batty.
Anyway, that's where this started. Now where is it going to go? As I see it, this is going to be an outlet for what I feel are some of the more important and more accessible ideas banging around in my head. I'm seeing something like the following list which I am literally making up on the spot:
*By the way, follow me on Twitter: @Boston_Chance.
The genesis of this blog is actually really simple: for a very long time I have been thinking thoughts about a lot of different things and really haven't felt like nearly enough of those thoughts have the opportunity to be expressed externally. Now, despite my excessive love of the sound of my own voice and my great attachment to the quality of my own ideas, I might've been able to just live with this. Except that, particularly in recent years, I have found myself continually thinking the same thoughts; I'm resisting using words like "convergence" or "brilliant inspiration", because that isn't at all what was going on here. It was more that these thoughts, in that wonderfully endearing passive-aggressive way of theirs, made it quite clear to me that if I did not find a way to get them out of my head, they were going to do their level best to drive me completely batty.
Anyway, that's where this started. Now where is it going to go? As I see it, this is going to be an outlet for what I feel are some of the more important and more accessible ideas banging around in my head. I'm seeing something like the following list which I am literally making up on the spot:
- Topics may include physics, mathematics, design, writing, creativity, philosophy and any combination of those things. This list is absolutely not exhaustive.
- I'm probably going to lean more towards talking about general topics rather than minutiae. What I mean by that is, for example, I'm probably not going to write a post about how much I love Lady GaGa, or Starbucks, or what-have-you unless there's some broader point which I'm using Lady GaGa, or Starbucks to illustrate. That's what Twitter is for*.
- I have no idea how often I'm going to be posting. I feel I can realistically promise every other week, with a personal goal of at least one post every month.
- If we are very, very lucky, I will post samples of my creative writing; but I can definitely promise that why "we" will need to be lucky is going to be the subject of a post in the near future.
- I am going to try my hardest to make my math and physics posts as non-mathy and non-physicsy as possible. Mostly because the things I want to say about math and physics are things of which I want to make sure I have a firm grasp; and the best way to test your own understanding is to try teaching it to others. If I don't feel that these are turning out the way I want them to, they will be the first to be cut from the list of topics.
- As much as it pains me to say it, I am probably not going to use this blog to talk about politics. Partly because it is extremely difficult to extract politics from its own minutiae, partly because a blog is not really conducive to stimulating discussion,--which is what really interest me about politics--and partly because I feel that whatever it is that I want to say about politics can be adapted to serve a different topic.
- This post is probably going to be the rambliest of the lot. I hope. I'm going to try to have plans for subsequent posts.
*By the way, follow me on Twitter: @Boston_Chance.
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