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James B. Hartle
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A collection of short expository essays by the author on various topics in quantum mechanics, quantum cosmology, and physics in general.
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Light pollution is actively destroying our ability to see the stars. Many Indigenous traditions and knowledge systems around the world are based on the stars, and the peoples ability to observe and interpret stellar positions and properties is of critical importance for daily life and cultural continuity. The erasure of the night sky acts to erase Indigenous connection to the stars, acting as a form of ongoing cultural and ecological genocide. Efforts to reduce, minimise, or eliminate light pollution are being achieved with varying degrees of success, but urban expansion, poor lighting design, and the increased use of blue-light emitting LEDs as a cost-effective solution is worsening problems related to human health, wildlife, and astronomical heritage for the benefit of capitalistic economic growth. We provide a brief overview of the issue, illustrating some of the important connections that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia maintain with the stars, as well as the impact growing light pollution has on this ancient knowledge. We propose a transdisciplinary approach to solving these issues, using a foundation based on Indigenous philosophies and decolonising methodologies.
The stone alignment Nilurallu at Murardoddi is a megalithic monument containing standing stones of 12 to 16 feet high that are arranged somewhat in a squarish pattern. This is one of the stone alignments listed by Allchin (1956) as a non-sepulchal array that might have some astronomical connotations. This impressive stone alignment seems to be similar to that at Vibhuthihalli, that was studied earlier, but constructed with much larger stones. The observations conducted by us show that the rows of stones are aligned to the directions of sunrise (and sunset) on calendrically-important events, like equinoxes and solstices. In contrast to Vibhuthihalli, the shadows of stones provide a means of measuring shorter intervals of time. Key words: Observational astronomy, megalithic astronomy, stone alignments, equinoxes, solstices, sunrises
In this work we apply generalized A. Sparavigna method (use of freely available softwares (programs), e.g. http://www.sollumis.com/, http://suncalc.net/#/44.557,22.0265,13/2014.12.29/09:22, http://universimmedia.pagesperso-orange.fr/geo/loc.htm, http://www.spectralcalc.com/solar_calculator/solar_position.php and http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Yourhorizon) for analysis of possible astronomical characteristics of three remarkable Giza, i.e. Cheops, Chephren and Mikerin pyramids. Concretely, we use mentioned programs for determination of the Giza plateau longitude and latitude, moments of the sunrise and sunset for any day at the Giza plateau, and, simulation of the sky horizon above Giza plateau in any moment of any day, respectively. In this way we obtain a series of the figures which unambiguously imply the following original results. Any of three remarkable Giza pyramids (Cheops, Chephren and Mikerin) holds only one characteristic edge between apex and north-west vertex of the base so that sunrise direction overlap almost exactly this edge during 28. October. (There is a small declination of the overlap date by Chephren pyramid by which overlap date is approximately 23. or 24. October.) Simultaneously, in the sunset moment for the same day, Taurus constellation (corresponding to holly bull in ancient Egypt mythology) appears at a point at the very eastern boundary of the sky horizon.
There are two puzzles surrounding the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters. First, why are the mythological stories surrounding them, typically involving seven young girls being chased by a man associated with the constellation Orion, so similar in vastly separated cultures, such as the Australian Aboriginal cultures and Greek mythology? Second, why do most cultures call them Seven Sisters even though most people with good eyesight see only six stars? Here we show that both these puzzles may be explained by a combination of the great antiquity of the stories combined with the proper motion of the stars, and that these stories may predate the departure of most modern humans out of Africa around 100,000 BC.
First, we give a closed-form formula for first passage time of a reflected Brownian motion with drift. This modifies a formula by Perry et al (2004). Second, we show that the maximum before a fixed drawdown is exponentially distributed for any drawdown threshold, if and only if the diffusion characteristic mu/sigma^2 is constant. This complements the sufficient condition formulated by Lehoczky (1977). Third, we give an alternative proof for the fact that the maximum at a fixed drawdown threshold is exponentially distributed for any spectrally negative Levy process, a result due to Mijatovic and Pistorius (2012).
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