Theory of Gravity Contradicted

Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, an immensely important update to Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, is currently our best approximation of how the universe ticks.

But there are some holes in Einstein's theory, including some gravitational weirdness around low acceleration “wide binary” stars.

A new study claims that the behavior of these slow-moving celestial objects can’t be explained by a Newton-Einstein theory, which relies on dark matter, but could be explained with an idea known as Modified Newtonian Dynamics, or MOND.

In 1687, English physicist Isaac Newton published his famous Law of Universal Gravitation. The idea that all objects attract in proportion to their mass was a revolutionary idea that became a huge boon for understanding the ways of the universe. 

But even Newton’s influential work had its limitations—specifically, it couldn’t explain gravitational phenomena such as black holes and gravitational waves. Thankfully, Albert Einstein came around in the early 20th century to help patch things up a bit with his Theory of General Relativity.

But space is a big place, and even Einsteins sometimes meet their limit. One of the most well-known of these limits is a black hole’s center, or singularity, where Einstein’s famous theory appears to break down completely. 

Now, a new study from scientists at South Korea’s Sejong University suggests that another limit to Newton and Einstein’s conception of gravity can be found in the orbital motions of long-period, widely separated, binary stars—also known simply as “wide binaries.” The results of this study were published this month in The Astrophysical Journal.     READ MORE...

China Builds Warships

If there’s an arms race at sea, China currently is winning.

The U.S. Defense Department’s own numbers support that view. It estimates China has around 340 warships, while the U.S. number is below 300.

On top of that, the Defense Department warns that China is building new ships faster than the U.S. is.

Beijing could have 400 warships by 2025, an increase of 60. But the U.S. may need more than 20 years to build 50 more ships.

In other words, according to CNN, the Chinese can build three warships in the time it takes the U.S. to build one.

If that’s not enough, the Global Firepower website says Russia and North Korea also have stronger Navy fleets than the U.S.

For the West to keep up with China, military experts say Japan and South Korea may have to increase production.

Japan’s warships currently “are among the world’s best,” former U.S. Pacific Command operations director Carl Schuster told Britain’s Daily Star.

South Korea reportedly has a destroyer that possesses more firepower than its Chinese counterpart.

But the U.S. cannot buy Asian warships. It’s against federal law. Warship construction in other countries for the U.S. Navy also is banned.  READ MORE...

Nation Mourns

Police said they've launched a 475-member task force to invetigate Saturday's disaster, which was concentrated in a sloped, narrow alley.

South Korean police investigated on Monday what caused a crowd surge that killed more than 150 people including 26 foreigners during Halloween festivities in Seoul in the country's worst disaster in years, as President Yoon Suk Yeol and tens of thousands of others paid respects to the dead at special mourning sites.

Saturday's disaster was concentrated in a sloped, narrow alley in Seoul's Itaewon neighborhood, a popular nightlife district, with witnesses and survivors recalling a "hell-like" chaos with people falling on each other like dominoes. They said the entire Itaewon area was jammed with slow-moving vehicles and partygoers clad in Halloween costumes, making it impossible for rescuers and ambulances to reach the crammed alleys in time.    READ MORE...

Floating Cities of the Future

The world’s first prototype floating city that adapts to sea level rise has just been unveiled at UN headquarters in New York.

OCEANIX Busan, in South Korea, aims to provide breakthrough technology for coastal cities facing land shortages and the threat of climate change.

When built, the three interconnected platforms, totalling 15.5 acres, will provide homes for a community of 12,000 people.

It’s one of many solutions being found to the growing issue of rising sea levels.

Housing the growing global population is one of the key challenges facing policymakers today - and one made even more challenging by climate change.

Without curbing emissions, it’s predicted more than 800 million people, living in 570 cities around the world, could be at risk from sea level rise by 2050, according to the C40 network of global cities addressing climate change.

The network estimates the cost of rising sea levels and inland flooding could reach $1 trillion by mid-century.

But it’s hoped that this sustainable floating city prototype could go some way to solving the problem of providing safe homes for vulnerable coastal communities.

‘Solutions to global challenges’
OCEANIX Busan, based in the waters off South Korea’s second-largest city, was recently unveiled at the UN headquarters in New York. It’s a collaboration between UN-Habitat, the Busan Metropolitan City, and OCEANIX, a blue tech company based in New York.

“We cannot solve today’s problems with yesterday’s tools. We need to innovate solutions to global challenges. But in this drive for innovation, let’s be inclusive and equitable and ensure we leave no one and no place behind,” Executive Director of UN-Habitat, Maimunah Mohd Sharif said at the launch.

The floating city is designed as three interconnected platforms, totalling 15.5 acres, that will initially provide homes for a community of 12,000 people, potentially rising to 100,000, with construction due to start in 2023.

Each of the platforms has a specific purpose - living, research, and lodging - while the link-span bridges that connect them to the land create a sheltered lagoon, providing space for recreation on the water.  READ MORE...

Misogyny in South Korea

Park Min-young, 29, spends most of his day talking to angry young men in Seoul.

His fingers relentlessly tap the keyboard as he replies to dozens of their messages at his desk in the centre of a busy campaign office for one of South Korea's main presidential candidates, Yoon Suk-yeol.

"Nearly 90% of men in their twenties are anti-feminist or do not support feminism," he tells me.

South Korea has one of the worst women's rights records in the developed world. And yet it is disgruntled young men who have been the focus of this country's presidential election.

Many do not see feminism as a fight for equality. Instead they resent it and view it as a form of reverse discrimination, a movement to take away their jobs and their opportunities.

It is a disparaging development for the tens of thousands of young women who took to the streets of Seoul in 2018 to shout "Me Too" after several high profile criminal cases involving sexual harassment and spy camera crimes known as "molka".

But now that cry is being drowned out by men shouting "Me First".

The country's gender politics is a minefield the country's next leader will have to navigate - if they can first win the battle to get into office.

The contest
Conservative candidate Mr Yoon and his liberal rival Lee Jae-myung are neck and neck in a contest to become the next leader of Asia's fourth largest economy.

Voters' top concerns are skyrocketing house prices, stagnant economic growth, and stubborn youth unemployment.

Neither have any experience as legislators in the National Assembly which is a first in South Korea's democratic history.

And neither appear to have a strong female voting base. Both parties have been accused of misogyny.  READ MORE...

North Korea Cyberattacks Working

North Korea’s cyberattacks became famous in 2014, when Pyongyang’s hackers targeted Sony Pictures, seemingly in retaliation for a satirical movie about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. But the reclusive regime’s greatly improved cybercapabilities are not a joke. They’re a serious threat to the stability of the global economy and critical infrastructure systems.

North Korean hackers have gone on to bigger and more financially profitable targets. Since 2014, North Korean hackers have attacked Bangladesh’s central bank, the U.K. National Health Service, and, more recently, cryptocurrency exchanges. And the odds are that many more major North Korean cyberattacks are to come in the near future.

In internal regime discourse, Pyongyang proudly refers to its cyberoperations as its “all-purpose sword.” According to testimony from a South Korean intelligence chief, Kim reportedly stated: “Cyberwarfare, along with nuclear weapons and missiles, is an ‘all-purpose sword’ that guarantees our military’s capability to strike relentlessly.” Subversive, criminal operations are a style of asymmetric warfare long embraced by the North. 

The country’s founding leader, Kim Il Sung, earned his nationalist credentials by fighting Japanese colonialists in the 1930s. His guerrilla band later became the political elite of the North Korean state. During the Cold War era, Kim regularly deployed guerrillas to subvert and instigate the South Korean government. North Koreas hackers are the 21st-century version of guerrilla fighters, moving in the dark and striking at the most vulnerable points.

Historically, guerrillas often depended on banditry and robbery to survive—and one reason for the recent amping up of cyberattacks is financial worries. While Kim Jong Un’s recent missile tests garner international condemnation and head-shaking in Washington and Seoul, Pyongyang’s cyberoperatives work in the shadows. 

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, North Korean borders have been sealed shut for the past two years. North Korean trade with China has largely stalled, and many foreign diplomats have left the country, making the already reclusive state even more isolated.  READ MORE...

Meaning of Life

After Pew Research Center published its findings about what makes life meaningful in 17 developed economies, the answers from Korea startled many.

Korea was abuzz over the weekend about the results of a survey conducted by Pew Research Center in spring about what makes life "meaningful, fulfilling or satisfying" in 17 developed economies.

The findings came out on Nov. 18, and the answers from Korea were startling. It was the only country where "material well-being" was given as the top source of life's meaning. In fourteen other countries the first choice was family.

Predictably, the news prompted much handwringing across Korea's ideological spectrum as proof of the country's decay, but for different reasons. "Korea is the only country like this," wrote musician and prominent cultural critic Sohn Yisang on Facebook, implying that too many Koreans are focused on "don 돈" (money), as he translated "material well-being".

The conservative daily Chosun Ilbo blamed policymakers in the current center-left government for turning Koreans this way: "in the last few years this country's citizens went through experiences that shook the very foundation of how happiness is understood."

The paper obviously wants to argue that the out-of-control price of real estate has made "people who can't afford to buy an apartment even by scraping together everything they've got...unhappy because they hear how other people are getting manifold richer through stock or apartment or cryptocurrency purchases."

I don't really see a clear connection between what the Chosun Ilbo is saying and the Pew survey, but whichever way one interprets this survey result, there is an agreement: the choice of material well-being as the top source of meaning in life speaks to a problem in Korea.  READ MORE...

It's Just Trains

 

Ever since the invention of the steam locomotive in 1802, trains have been a driving societal force.

Invented in Britain at the height of the Industrial Revolution, steam trains gave the empire an unparalleled advantage in transporting goods and people. Soon it spread around the world as other nations scrambled to build their own railway networks to facilitate growth and commerce.

But just as nations rushed to build more railways, they also tried to build faster trains. Japan’s Tōkaidō Shinkansen or “bullet train” in 1964 was the first high-speed rail system, achieving a speed above 124 mph or 200 km/h.

How do other countries and trains compare?

Let’s dive into the fastest trains in the world using data from Travel and Leisure magazine.
Who Has The Fastest Trains in the World?

Japan started the high-speed train revolution in earnest, and it’s still at the top of the charts.

Though it’s fastest regular operating bullet trains (the N700A Shinkansen) can reach a top speed of 186 mph or 300 km/h, the country’s new development in magnetic levitation (maglev) is breaking speed records.

In fact, the top two fastest trains in the world are maglev, using two sets of magnets to elevate the train and propel it forward without friction to slow it down.

World's Fastest Trains                             Country                Speed Record

L0 Series Maglev                                        Japan                    374 mph (602 km/h)
CRRC Qingdao Sifang 2021 Maglev*        China                    373 mph (600 km/h)
TGV POS                                                    France                  357 mph (575 km/h)
CRH380A Hexie                                         China                    302 mph (486 km/h)
Shanghai Maglev                                        China                    268 mph (431 km/h)
HEMU-430X                                              South Korea         262 mph (422 km/h)
Fuxing Hao CR400AF                                China                    260 mph (418 km/h)
Frecciarossa 1000                                       Italy                      245 mph (394 km/h)


*No official name or designation has been given yet, so currently listed under the manufacturer’s name, CRRC Qingdao Sifang.

Japan’s L0 Series Maglev is still in production, but with a land speed record of 374 mph or 602 km/h it is the fastest train in the world.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Transgendered Soldier Dead

South Korea's first transgender soldier, who was discharged from the military for undergoing gender reassignment surgery, has been found dead at her home.

The cause of death of Byun Hee-soo, a transgender rights campaigner, is not yet known.

She launched a landmark legal challenge against the military in January last year over her dismissal.

Her petition for reinstatement was rejected in July.

South Korea remains conservative on matters of sexual identity.

The 23-year-old had been receiving counselling from a mental health centre in her home province of Gyeonggi, north of Seoul. Her counsellor became concerned after not hearing from her since 28 February and called emergency services.

Ms Byun's case triggered debate about the treatment of transgender troops and soldiers from the LGBTQ community in the country.

She previously told reporters that apart from her gender identity, she wanted to show everyone that she could also be one of the great soldiers who protect the country.

All able-bodied South Korean men are required to carry out military service for nearly two years.

In December, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea said the decision not to allow her to continue to serve in the military had no legal grounds.  SOURCE:  BBC

Dead Reckoning

DEAD RECKONING is the navigational process of calculating
current position of some moving object by using a previously determined position, or fix, by using estimations of speed, heading direction and course over elapsed time.

ADVANTAGE:  it can be a highly accurate way of moving from one point to another if done carefully over short distances, even where few external cues are present to guide the movements.

In other words, we can forecast where we might be in 3 months by using the clues and cues of where we are now which has been determined by dead reckoning, but, if we were to push farther out into the future and even if our forecasted predictions were based and predicated upon the past for the last 20-50 years, there is still no guarantees that they will continue in the same direction forward unless the future has already been PREORDAINED or PREDETERMINED which we all know is simply not possible at all...  given our current levels of knowledge and technologies...  however, is that really true?

The speed of light is very fast and it takes about 8.5 minutes for sunlight to reach the earth... so, the light of our present is really from the sun's past.  And if, we were living on the sun, the earth would be 8.5 minutes ahead of us...  therefore, we could see into our future...  however, at this moment living on the sun is theoretically impossible and probably highly improbable given how hot it is.

But, the concept of seeing into our future is theoretically possible...  so, our future can be seen as being preordained and/or predetermined...  it is just that we are not in a position to take advantage of that.  Yet, if we could, then it would also be possible to see into our future more than 3 months, possibly more than 3 years, highly likely more than 3 decades, and quite feasible more than 3 centuries or more.

RIGHT NOW:  we are simply in a position where all we can do is make predictions like:

1.  China using its military and economy one day to control the world

2.  North Korea becoming a nuclear power and using it against South Korea and Japan

3.  Russia reclaiming all those countries that the USSR lost once its government dissolved

4.  Larger cities like SEATTLE, WA increasing and sustaining waves of crime and violence now that police department have been defunded

5.  Our country bordering on financial collapse (or printing up more money) due to the wealthy hiding their money so that it cannot be taxes to pay for everything

6.  Changing our government from being a Democratic Republic to that of a Socialist Nation

7.  To seeing race wars spread like wildfire across the continent when in reality they are wars between the wealthy and those who live in or close to poverty