I've heard Lars on at least one occasion state, "But we're at war!" I don't know whether he meant that we shouldn't discuss other things in this statement, but I don't see THIS war as anything we've seen in our lifetimes.

Some reservists have already been called up and I have no doubt that some mercenaries have already been recruited. The draft will not be initiated, at least per all recent projections.

The administration has thrown all it's eggs into this one "fight terrorism" basket, it seems, as Bush has made it his top priority. Personally, I don't see how such a task can be accomplished in one term of presidency, but I'd appreciate any start in this arena.

I see this "war" as, perhaps, an Israeli sees life. We continue to eat, sleep, live, love, work, and worry about the little things, but the "war" that hovers above us doesn't affect us as much as, perhaps a job layoff or the thug who "hit" a local in our neighborhood.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), September 22, 2001

Answers

Of course I didn't mean that we should not discuss other things. In fact, I just made a typically superficial post on the "Creativity" thread.

But I do believe that Sept 11 was a step-change (a little engineering lingo there) in the human condition and that an anti-Western, anti-civilization (ie, reactionary) force of some significance has declared war on us and that we have no recourse but to respond.

This has already affected my life in a personal way (no, I do not know anyone who died) and I foresee it affecting the entire world soon. I pray that I am wrong.

I think that if the US sits around and wrings its hands, blaming itself, trying to be "nice", singing Kumbaya, we will get hit again. And again. These people do not want our affection. They do not respect weakness.

If it helps Anita, try to think of them as Fascists. It's not hard to do.

Do you think Big D is "safe"?

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), September 22, 2001.

I don't agree with you here totally, Anita.I think our lives are going to be changed in a quite fundamental way .Principally in the way in which individuals travel,communicate & carry out business.Many parts of the world do not want "globalisation" based on free enterprise.I think there is an interesting comparison here with the attitude of even Western countries towards regulating the Internet and in particular the collection of taxes on the sales of goods.

On Irish TV news yesteday it mentioned that air passenger traffic in the US was down 74%.What it didn't mention in the same breath was that air mail is suffering severe delays & that almost every air freight parcel is now having to be screened.This has caused massive backlogs in freight handling warehouses,factory warehouses and in some cases has caused factories to cease production..hopefully for just a short time.

We export 100% of our output by air & import all our raw materials.Happy times ahead!

Nevertheless,we,like nearly everyone in Ireland support President Bush but listen more closely to Colin Powell for clues to life in the future.

-- Chris (chris@ireland.ie), September 22, 2001.

You got it all backwards Lars. The United States is the fascist dictator of the world, using our power to force other countries to live the way we do. It is hard to understand for someone who has been brainwashed from birth, but if you lived in another country for a while you'd probably have a better perspective.

-- (U.S. has @ delusions. of grandeur), September 23, 2001.

Yeah, what an asinine statement. I guess we've imposed the Bill of Rights on the Middle East. WRONG! Other countries pretty much screw themselves and then blame the U.S. Maybe it's American culture keeping the ethnic minorities killing each other in the Balkans. Maybe it's American film that keeps African tribes warring and living in poverty. Maybe American tourists are really behind the violence in the Middle East, Ireland and South America. Let's just blame the U.S. for every fuckin' problem in the world. Hey, it works for the French.

-- Boo (hoo@hoo.com), September 23, 2001.

OK. LET'S PRETEND THE usa VANISHES,,UTOPIA HUH??? duh!!

-- al-d. (dogs@zianet.com), September 24, 2001.

You got it all backwards Lars. The United States is the fascist dictator of the world, using our power to force other countries to live the way we do. It is hard to understand for someone who has been brainwashed from birth, but if you lived in another country for a while you'd probably have a better perspective.

I do not deny that there is such a thing as "American cultural imperialism" but it is spread by seduction, not by force. If the Arabs don't want to sell us their oil, then so be it. If they don't want want to drink our coke and watch our porno, then so be it.

If they want to reap the whirlwind by killing our civilians, then sow be it.

Maybe it's worth remembering that it was America that prevented Serbia from "ethnically cleansing" the Bosnian Muslims. Maybe it's worth remembering that it was American support that enabled the Muhajadin to kick Soviet ass. Maybe it's worth remembering that many, many Muslims have chosen to immigrate to this country to find opportunity beyond serfdom for the local warlord. Maybe it's worth remembering that Muslim women are people too and that America has recognized that whereas Muslim states have not. Maybe it's worth remembering that the Arabs sat on top of all that oil for thousands of years but it was Europeans that invented engines thast made it valuable. Maybe it's worth remembering that Europeans and Americans invented the drilling technology and provided the capital to tap that oil that Muslims sell to us.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), September 24, 2001.

Chris: I'm sure that there will be temporary setbacks due to the new procedures put in place. However, I also feel confident that these setbacks will be short-lived.

Last Thursday, I picked up SO at the airport. His flight arrived a few minutes earlier than scheduled. Each time I pick him up and drop him back for a flight, I enter the South entrance at DFW and obtain a ticket that is time-stamped. Usually, and this includes last Thursday, the attendant puts my ticket into a machine and if I've not been at the airport long enough to indicate a charge, he/she waves me on. This morning I presented my ticket and the woman at the gate didn't put it into a machine before waving me on. I looked in the booth and she had a video screen displaying my car.

I can only hypothesize at this point, but I'm thinking that the video screen ALSO told her what time I entered the airport.

I guess my point in the above is to suggest that after the initial struggle with new regulations, new equipment is brought in to speed up the process. My bet is that within a week or so you'll notice no delays at all.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), September 24, 2001.

Lars: A response is in the making, but I don't believe we'll be privy to the details.

Do you think Big D is "safe"?

I think it's as safe as anywhere else, Lars. I'm not going to allow fear to hinder my routine, and I doubt that many others are willing to do that either. When loved ones die, we mourn for a sufficient period and then move on with life. I could just as well be hit by a truck tomorrow as be hit by a terrorist.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), September 24, 2001.

Just to add on to what Lars was correctly pointing out, but from the other perspective:

Maybe it's worth remembering that the Arabs sat on top of all that oil for thousands of years but it was Europeans that invented engines that made it valuable. Maybe it's worth remembering that Europeans and Americans invented the drilling technology and provided the capital to tap that oil that Muslims sell to us.

BUT; it was the Muslims that gathered up and protected all the books and knowledge that our current society is so obviously founded upon, and which they, and they alone, protected and even expanded upon, as WE (Christendom) went thru the Dark Ages, ourselves(and burned every book we could lay hands on - and held great thinkers who said the earth was not the center of the universe up for excommunication and burning at the stake). While we were lost in Witch hunts and superstition and plague. It's not just the pre-Dark Ages books they saved for us - but their own contributions in mathematics, astronomy, medicine and many other areas of science and the also of the arts, preserved by them and them alone, that are the very basis of all we appreciate today.

Not so??

-- Zzzzz (asleep@the.wheel), September 24, 2001.

Yes, Islam has made extraordinary contributions to the wealth of mankind in the arts, literature, science and math (algebra is an Arabic word), the concept of "zero" was Arabian, we use Arabic numerals (can you imagine computers based on Roman numerals?). It's just so sad that reactionaries have co-opted the Islamic civilization.

But they have and that is what we must deal with.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), September 24, 2001.

Around 640 AD the Muslims burned what was left of the great library at Alexandria after 300 years of Christian ill treatment of the library. A couple centuries later they started saving what was still around.

The zero probably came from Kerala province in India where the calculus (but without proofs) was invented around 1100 AD. The Indian version of calculus never spread to the west. Perhaps the stimulus that lead to calculus in the west was the translation of Apollonius's first 4 volumes on conic sections around 1570. The Greek version of Apollonius is lost. I recall getting a copy with the Arabic version on every other page from the library and an Egyptian was in line with me who at first told me it wasn't Arabic and then decided that it was very old fashioned Arabic after all.

-- dandelion (golden@pleurisy.plant), September 24, 2001.

I thought Isaac Newton invented calculus. Got a link that traces it to India? I can't find one.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), September 25, 2001.

Do you think Big D is "safe"?

Dallas? Detroit? Des Moines? Dennis Olson?

I'd say there are Arabs hiding in Dennis' toolshed right now, waiting to pour sugar in his generator when he leaves for work.

-- Bemused (and_amazed@you.people), September 25, 2001.

Debbie did not do DesMoines.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), September 25, 2001.

I'm glad to see a little humor returning.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), September 25, 2001.

Lars,

Newton and Leibniz are given credit for calculus because they came up with the fundamental theorem of calculus (actually Isaac Barrow, Newton's teacher, knew it before Newton but did not see why it was significant) which relates derivatives and integrals. Prior to that integrals were very hard to compute. Differential calculus was developed by Fermat (the generation before Newton) while integral calculus goes back to Archimedes (250 BC) in principle although Fermat was the first to be able to integrate polynomials.

As for calculus in India, Bhaskara (or Bhaskaracharya meaning Bhaskara the teacher) was the leading mathematician there in the 1100's. His work includes the derivatives of the Indian versions of the sine and cosine. In the 1300's Madhava found the power series for the arctangent and the so-called Leibniz formula for pi. Around the same time the Indians found the mean value theorem. A good book for this is The Crest of the Peacock by George Gheverghese Joseph.

A google search on Madhava turned up

http://www-groups.dcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/ Madhava.html

-- dandelion (golden@pleurisy.plant), September 25, 2001.

Dandelion...just one question; are you carbon based or silicon based?

-- Zzzzz (asleep@the.wheel), September 25, 2001.

Dandy--

Fascinating stuff. Thanks. I am so Eurocentric.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), September 26, 2001.