Author: mindful webworker

Cartoonist, songsmith, experimenter in audio, video, animation, and virtual reality. Or, political and social philosopher, theologian, and futurist. Some or all of the above.

The Ulam Spiral

Small Ulam spiral

Wikipedia: The Ulam spiral or prime spiral is a graphical depiction of the set of prime numbers, devised by mathematician Stanisław Ulam in 1963….[1] It is constructed by writing the positive integers in a square spiral and specially marking the prime numbers.

Ulam… emphasized the striking appearance in the spiral of prominent diagonal, horizontal, and vertical lines containing large numbers of primes. …Ulam… noted that the existence of such prominent lines is not unexpected, as lines in the spiral correspond to quadratic polynomials, and certain such polynomials, such as Euler’s prime-generating polynomial x2 − x + 41, are believed to produce a high density of prime numbers.[2][3] Nevertheless, the Ulam spiral is connected with major unsolved problems in number theory such as Landau’s problems. In particular, no quadratic polynomial has ever been proved to generate infinitely many primes, much less to have a high asymptotic density of them, although there is a well-supported conjecture as to what that asymptotic density should be.

In 1932, more than thirty years prior to Ulam’s discovery, the herpetologist Laurence Klauber constructed a triangular, non-spiral array containing vertical and diagonal lines exhibiting a similar concentration of prime numbers. Like Ulam, Klauber noted the connection with prime-generating polynomials, such as Euler’s.[4]…

Read more at Wikipedia
h/t Tom Servo on A♠

File:Ulam 1.png

The uncertainties of mask use demand that no one be forced to wear them

Robert Zimmerman, Behind the Black

The uncertainty of science: Regular readers of Behind the Black will know that I have made it very clear I consider the requirement to wear a mask by government officials to be an incredible and inappropriate overreach of their authority, partly because they don’t have that legal right, and partly because the science is very uncertain, with some studies strongly suggesting that the mask could have serious negative health effects.

Still, the science remains uncertain. Because of this uncertainty, it seems to me in a free society, where everyone respects the idea of freedom, wearing a mask must be left up to each individual.

Sadly, the social justice warriors of our society no longer believe in freedom, and will try to shame and discredit you if you say publicly you will not wear a mask. In the past week I have had two friends tell me bluntly that they will never again be in the same room with me, because they insist that everyone should wear a mask in public, all the time. (This saddens me because I had considered them friends, and it appears those friendships are now over.)…

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We have been lied to

Daniel Horowitz, Conservative Review

…The coronavirus fascists have succeeded in cementing their illogical, immoral, and illegal policies through the prism of false information about the timing of the virus, the specific nature and severity of the overall fatality rate, the number of actual deaths, and the utility (or perhaps harm) of lockdown policies in actually mitigating deaths – all the while obfuscating the much higher collateral deaths and damage caused by the lockdown itself.

Every day we learn new information demonstrating the lies driving lockdown. Here are some of the most important ones from over the weekend.…

  1. COVID-19 death numbers inflation
  2. longer lockdowns had worse results
  3. Outside nursing homes, the fatality rate never warranted such action
  4. Outside New York, this is barely worse than bad flu seasons
  5. Excess deaths are from the lockdowns, not the virus
  6. Social distancing was invented by a high-school kid and politicians, not scientists

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Massachusetts Telegraphed Governors’ COVID-19 Oppression 70 Years Ago

Brian Camenker at American Thinker

…On August 29, 1949, the USSR successfully detonated its first atomic bomb. Cold War panic ignited across America. There were fears of a Soviet invasion of the United States. The following year, the Massachusetts Legislature reacted by passing the “Civil Defense Act — Chapter 639 of the Acts of 1950.”

The main stated purpose of the law was to give the state government a way to “effectively minimize the damage” from “attack, sabotage, or other hostile action” by “enemies of the United States.” The Legislature also included some other categories of disasters that cause physical damage: “disaster or catastrophe resulting from riot or other civil disturbance; or by fire, flood, earthquake or other natural causes.”

That law gives the governor the power to proclaim a “state of emergency” throughout Massachusetts. During the state of emergency, the governor is given extraordinary powers — and can supersede existing statutes if he chooses. Those powers, which are broadly listed in the statute, are quite frightening, and many appear unconstitutional. They are clearly laid out to deal with enemy attacks, riots, etc. For example, cooperation with military and naval forces is described. Nothing in the law addresses or implies public health concerns or pandemics.…

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…And a Child’s Wild Idea Shall Mislead Them

A Kid With No Job Came Up With the Idea of Shutting Down the Economy in a Pandemic

by Victoria Taft, PJ Media

A 15-year-old New Mexico high school student came up with the original idea of socially separating during a pandemic in 2005. She theorized along the lines of “Hey if we all skip school we won’t get each other sick!” She got third place in an Intel science fair for this.

Her dad happened to be a lab rat at a major government lab and voila, within a few short years of him proving out her thesis with supercomputer modeling, we’re now in a pandemic-induced depression.

The story’s more complicated than that – obviously – but who ever thought that shutting down the economy during a pandemic was a good idea?

It turns out there were many hands involved in this debacle. …

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