Yannis Stavrou-Solo painting Exhibition / 11-30 November 2008

YANNIS STAVROU- SOLO PAINTING EXHIBITION

«The Last Itineraries»

«ARKTOS GALLERY», 5 Herodotou Street, Athens 10674

11 – 30 November 2008

Opening: Tuesday November 11, 7.30 p.m.

An Open Letter to the Scientific Community *

Yannis Stavrou, Morning at port, oil on canvas

Published in NEW SCIENTIST , May 2004:

Our ideas about the history of the universe are dominated by big bang theory. But its dominance rests more on funding decisions than on the scientific method, according to Eric J Lerner, mathematician Michael Ibison of Earthtech.org, and dozens of other scientists from around the world.

*An Open Letter to the Scientific Community

Cosmology Statement.org (Published in New Scientist, May 22-28 issue, 2004, p. 20)


The big bang today relies on a growing number of hypothetical entities, things that we have never observed– inflation, dark matter and dark energy are the most prominent examples. Without them, there would be a fatal contradiction between the observations made by astronomers and the predictions of the big bang theory.
In no other field of physics would this continual recourse to new hypothetical objects be accepted as a way of bridging the gap between theory and observation. It would, at the least, RAISE SERIOUS QUESTIONS ABOUT THE VALIDITY OF THE UNDERLYING THEORY.

But the big bang theory can’t survive without these fudge factors. Without the hypothetical inflation field, the big bang does not predict the smooth, isotropic cosmic background radiation that is observed, because there would be no way for parts of the universe that are now more than a few degrees away in the sky to come to the same temperature and thus emit the same amount of microwave radiation.

Without some kind of dark matter, unlike any that we have observed on Earth despite 20 years of experiments, big-bang theory makes contradictory predictions for the density of matter in the universe. Inflation requires a density 20 times larger than that implied by big bang nucleosynthesis, the theory’s explanation of the origin of the light elements. And without dark energy, the theory predicts that the universe is only about 8 billion years old, which is billions of years younger than the age of many stars in our galaxy.

What is more, the big bang theory can boast of no quantitative predictions that have subsequently been validated by observation. The successes claimed by the theory’s supporters consist of its ability to retrospectively fit observations with a steadily increasing array of adjustable parameters, just as the old Earth-centred cosmology of Ptolemy needed layer upon layer of epicycles.

Yet the big bang is not the only framework available for understanding the history of the universe. Plasma cosmology and the steady-state model both hypothesise an evolving universe without beginning or end. These and other alternative approaches can also explain the basic phenomena of the cosmos, including the abundances of light elements, the generation of large-scale structure, the cosmic background radiation, and how the redshift of far-away galaxies increases with distance. They have even predicted new phenomena that were subsequently observed, something the big bang has failed to do.

Supporters of the big bang theory may retort that these theories do not explain every cosmological observation. But that is scarcely surprising, as their development has been severely hampered by a complete lack of funding. Indeed, such questions and alternatives cannot even now be freely discussed and examined. An open exchange of ideas is lacking in most mainstream conferences.

Whereas Richard Feynman could say that “science is the culture of doubt,” in cosmology today doubt and dissent are not tolerated, and young scientists learn to remain silent if they have something negative to say about the standard big bang model. Those who doubt the big bang fear that saying so will cost them their funding.

Even observations are now interpreted through this biased filter, judged right or wrong depending on whether or not they support the big bang. So discordant data on red shifts, lithium and helium abundances, and galaxy distribution, among other topics, are ignored or ridiculed. This reflects a growing dogmatic mindset that is alien to the spirit of free scientific enquiry.

Today, virtually all financial and experimental resources in cosmology are devoted to big bang studies. Funding comes from only a few sources, and all the peer-review committees that control them are dominated by supporters of the big bang. As a result, the dominance of the big bang within the field has become self-sustaining, irrespective of the scientific validity of the theory.

Giving support only to projects within the big bang framework undermines a fundamental element of the scientific method — the constant testing of theory against observation. Such a restriction makes unbiased discussion and research impossible. To redress this, we urge those agencies that fund work in cosmology to set aside a significant fraction of their funding for investigations into alternative theories and observational contradictions of the big bang. To avoid bias, the peer review committee that allocates such funds could be composed of astronomers and physicists from outside the field of cosmology.

Allocating funding to investigations into the big bang’s validity, and its alternatives, would allow the scientific process to determine our most accurate model of the history of the universe.

Signed:

(Institutions for identification only)

Eric J. Lerner, Lawrenceville Plasma Physics (USA)

Michael Ibison, Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin (USA) /Earthtech.org

www.earthtech.org

http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0302273

http://supernova.lbl.gov/~evlinder/linderteachin1.pdf

John L. West, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute ofTechnology (USA)

James F. Woodward, California State University, Fullerton (USA)

Halton Arp, Max-Planck-Institute Fur Astrophysik (Germany)

Andre Koch Torres Assis, State University of Campinas (Brazil)

Yuri Baryshev, Astronomical Institute, St. Petersburg State University(Russia)

Ari Brynjolfsson, Applied Radiation Industries (USA)

Hermann Bondi, Churchill College, University of Cambridge (UK)

Timothy Eastman, Plasmas International (USA)

Chuck Gallo, Superconix, Inc.(USA)

Thomas Gold, Cornell University (emeritus) (USA)

Amitabha Ghosh, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (India)

Walter J. Heikkila, University of Texas at Dallas (USA)

Thomas Jarboe, University of Washington (USA)


Jerry W. Jensen, ATK Propulsion (USA)

Menas Kafatos, George Mason University (USA)

Paul Marmet, Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics (retired) (Canada)

Paola Marziani, Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, OsservatorioAstronomico di Padova (Italy)

Gregory Meholic, The Aerospace Corporation (USA)

Jacques Moret-Bailly, Université Dijon (retired) (France)

Jayant Narlikar, IUCAA(emeritus) and College de France (India, France)

Marcos Cesar Danhoni Neves, State University of Maringá (Brazil)

CERN 10-9-2008. Mysteries of the universe will be solved

Yannis Stavrou, Bleu Blanc Rouge, oil on canvas

The most ambitious experiment in history will take place tomorrow at CERN.

We present you the relative article from TIMES http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/
science/article4670445.ece :

It is the most ambitious and expensive civilian science experiment in history, based on the biggest machine that humanity has yet built. It has sparked alarmist fears that it might create a black hole that will tear the Earth apart, and it has triggered two last-minute legal attempts to stop it. And next Wednesday, after almost two decades of planning and construction, the project in question will finally get under way.

Beneath the foothills of the Jura mountains, in a network of tunnels that bring to mind the lair of a crazed Bond villain, scientists will fire a first beam of particles around a ring as long as the Circle Line on the London Underground. This colossal circuit, 17 miles (27km) in circumference, is the world’s most powerful atom-smasher, the £3.5 billion Large Hadron Collider (LHC), created at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva. Some 10,000 scientists and engineers from 85 countries have been involved. In the years ahead it will recreate the high-energy conditions that existed one trillionth of a second after the big bang. In doing so, it should solve many of the most enduring mysteries of the Universe.

This extraordinary feat of engineering will accelerate two streams of protons to within 99.9999991 per cent of the speed of light, so that they complete 11,245 17-mile laps in a single second. The two streams will collide, at four points, with the energy of two aircraft carriers sailing into each other at 11 knots, inside detectors so vast that one is housed in a cavern that could enclose the nave of Westminster Abbey. The detectors will trace the sub-atomic debris that is thrown off by the collisions, to reveal new particles and effects that may never have existed on Earth before.

The mountains of data produced will shed light on some of the toughest questions in physics. The origin of mass, the workings of gravity, the existence of extra dimensions and the nature of the 95 per cent of the Universe that cannot be seen will all be examined. Perhaps the biggest prize of all is the “God particle” – the Higgs boson. This was first proposed in 1964 by Peter Higgs, of Edinburgh University, as an explanation for why matter has mass, and can thus coalesce to form stars, planets and people. Previous atom-smashers, however, have failed to find it, but because the LHC is so much more powerful, scientists are confident that it will succeed.

Times Archive, 1984: Higg's boson sparks off excitement

An international team of 78 physicists were involved in the discovery of this elusive object

Related Links

• Journey to the beginning of time is nearly complete

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Even a failure, however, would be exciting, because that would pose new questions about the laws of nature.

“What we find honestly depends on what’s there,” said Brian Cox, of the University of Manchester, an investigator on one of the four detectors, named Atlas. “I don’t believe there’s ever been a machine like this, that’s guaranteed to deliver. We know it will discover exciting things. We just don’t know what they are yet.” The guarantee applies, however, only if the hardware works as it should, and the LHC’s first big test comes on Wednesday, when the first beam of particles is injected into the accelerator. That is a huge technical challenge. “The beam is 2mm in diameter and has to be threaded into a vacuum pipe the size of a 50p piece around a 27km loop,” said Lyn Evans, the LHC’s project manager, who will oversee the insertion. “It is not going to be trivial.”

Engineers will use magnets to bend the beam around the LHC’s eight sectors, until it finally begins to circulate. “That’ll be the first sight of relief, that there are no obstacles in the vacuum chamber,” Dr Evans said. “There could be a Kleenex in the chamber – we’ve had that before. Only when we get the beam around will we be able to tell it’s clear.”

Once the first beam is in – probably the one running clockwise, though that has yet to be decided – the team will insert the second, anticlockwise stream of particles. The first collisions, to test the detectors, should follow by the end of next week.

The next step will be to “capture” the beams so they fire in short pulses, 2,800 times a second. These will then be accelerated to an energy of 5 tera-electronvolts (TeV), generating collisions of 10TeV.The detectors should be calibrated by the end of the year and the collisions will then be ramped up to their maximum energy of 14TeV, generating the conditions that prevailed fractions of a second after the Big Bang.

One of the first scientific discoveries is likely to concern a theory called supersymmetry. Tejinder Virdee, of Imperial College, London, who leads the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector team, said: “What supersymmetry predicts is that, for every particle you have a partner, so it doubles up the spectrum. You have a whole new zoology of particles, if you like.”

Theory suggests that if supersymmetry is real, evidence to confirm it should emerge quickly from the LHC, possibly as soon as next year. “If it pops up it’ll be quite easy to see,” Professor Cox said.

Such a discovery might also help to explain dark matter, which is thought to account for much of the missing mass of the Universe. Only about 4 per cent of matter – galaxies and the like – is visible to our telescopes. “In this new zoology, the lightest super-symmetric particle is a prime candidate for explaining dark matter,” Professor Virdee said.

The search for the Higgs could take longer, though it depends on the particle’s mass and thus the energy of the collisions in which it might be found. If it is at the heavier end of the possible range, the discovery could take as little as 12 months. A lighter Higgs would take longer to find, as the particles into which it would decay would also be lighter and harder to track.

Other potential discoveries include evidence for the existence of extra dimensions beyond the familiar three of space and one of time, and the creation of miniature (and harmless) black holes, though these are less probable. “Most of us think we’d be very lucky to find these things,” Professor Cox said.

There are two more detectors. The LHCb will investigate why there is any matter in the Universe at all, while Alice aims to study a mixture known as quark-gluon plasma, which last existed in the first millionth of a second after the big bang.

From gluons to sparticles

Particle
In physics, this term refers to sub-atomic particles – entities that are smaller than atoms. Some, such as protons and electrons, are the constituents of atoms. Others, such as quarks, are the constituents of other particles. Still others, such as photons and neutrinos, are generated by the Sun. And yet more, such as the Higgs boson, are theoretical: predicted but still undiscovered

Hadron
This is more than an excuse for a geeky physics joke – “Is that your hadron, or are you just pleased to see me?” Hadrons are particles with mass, made up of quarks that have been bound together

Protons, neutrons, quarks and gluons
Protons and neutrons are the best-known types of hadron. Each is composed of three smaller units, called quarks, and gluons that stick the quarks together. Protons have a positive charge, while neutrons have a neutral charge

Higgs boson
A theoretical particle, which is thought to give matter its mass. First proposed by Peter Higgs, of the University of Edinburgh, in 1964, it is sometimes nicknamed the “God particle”. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) should confirm whether it exists. The theory suggests that other particles travel through and interact with a field of Higgs bosons, which slows the particles down and gives rise to their mass. The process is often likened to moving through treacle. In the early 1990s Lord Waldegrave of North Hill, then the Science Minister, staged a competition for the best explanation. The winning analogy was of Margaret Thatcher – a massive particle – wandering through a Tory cocktail party and gathering hangers-on as she went

Standard model
The orthodox theory of modern physics. It is based on two other theories – general relativity and quantum mechanics – and its main weakness is that it cannot yet fully describe gravity or mass

Quantum mechanics
The main principle of the standard model, which describes how particles and forces behave at atomic and sub-atomic scales

General relativity
Einstein’s theory describing gravity. It is exceptionally well attested, but not fully compatible with quantum mechanics

Supersymmetry
The hypothesis that all particles have an accompanying partner known as a “superparticle” or “sparticle”. There is good theoretical evidence for it, but it has not yet been confirmed by experiment

Dark matter
Only about 4 per cent of the Universe is made up of visible matter. Another 25 per cent is “dark matter” – which can be inferred from its gravity, but cannot be seen. The remaining 71 per cent is still more mysterious “dark energy”. The LHC could shed light on what dark matter is, possibly through discoveries about supersymmetry

Extra dimensions
We are all familiar with four dimensions – three of space and one of time. But some theoretical physicists suggest that there could be as many as 26. Most physicists find these every bit as hard to visualise as normal people, but they make mathematical sense

Honore de Balzac: The Human Comedy

Yannis Stavrou, Nocturnal, oil on canvas

Honore de Balzac, a master of ontology. A great novelist, maybe the best. A friend...

Some of his quotations follow:

Cruelty and fear shake hands together.

Danger arouses interest. Where death is involved, the vilest criminal invariably stirs a little compassion.

Does not any limit imposed upon one inspire a desire to go beyond it? Does not our keenest suffering arise when our free will is crossed?

Doubt follows white-winged hope with trembling steps.

During the great storms of our lives we imitate those captains who jettison their weightiest cargo.

Emulation admires and strives to imitate great actions; envy is only moved to malice.

Emulation is not rivalry. Emulation is the child of ambition; rivalry is the unlovable daughter of envy.

Envy lurks at the bottom of the human heart, like a viper in its hole.

Evasion is unworthy of us, and is always the intimate of equivocation.

Even beauty cannot always palliate eccentricity.

Even when exercising their greatest duplicity, women are always sincere because they are yielding to some natural feeling.

Events are never absolute, their outcome depends entirely upon the individual. Misfortune is a stepping stone for a genius, a piscina for a Christian, a treasure for a man of parts, and an abyss for a weakling.

Few men are raised in our estimation by being too closely examined.

Fools gain greater advantages through their weakness than intelligent men through their strength. We watch a great man struggling against fate and we do not lift a finger to help him. But we patronize a grocer who is headed for bankruptcy.

Foppery, being the chronic condition of women, is not so much noticed as it is when it breaks out on the person of the male bird.

For businessmen, the world is a bale of banknotes in circulation; for most young men, it is a woman; for some women, it is a man; and for others it may be a salon, a coterie, a part of town or a whole city.

For certain people, misfortune is a beacon that lights up the dark and baser sides of social life.

For the journalist, anything probable is gospel truth.

Generally our confidences move downward rather than upward; in our secret affairs, we employ our inferiors much more than our bettors.

Genius is intensity.

Admiration bestowed upon any one but ourselves is always tedious.

After all, our worst misfortunes never happen, and most miseries lie in anticipation.

Alas, two men are often necessary to provide a woman with a perfect lover, just as in literature a writer composes a type only by employing the singularities of several similar characters.

All genuinely noble women prefer truth to falsehood. As the Russians with their Czar, they are unwilling to see their idol degraded; they want to be proud of the domination they accept.

All men can bear a familiar, definite misfortune better than the cruel alternations of a fate which, from one moment to another, brings excessive joy or sorrow.

Among fifty percent of your married couples, the husband worries very little about what his wife is doing, provided she is doing all he wishes.

An ounce of courage will go farther with women than a pound of timidity.

Any man, however blase or depraved, finds his love kindled anew when he sees himself threatened by a rival.

Are not poets men who fulfill their hopes prematurely?

Art's greatest efforts are invariably a timid counterfeit of Nature.

As a rule, only the poor are generous. Rich people can always find excellent reasons for not handing over twenty thousand francs to a relative.

As soon as man seeks to penetrate the secrets of Nature--in which nothing is secret and it is but a question of seeing--he realizes that the simple produces the supernatural.

At fifteen, neither beauty nor talent exist: a woman is all promise.

Authentic love always assumes the mystery of modesty, even in its expression, because actions speak louder than words. Unlike a feigned love, it feels no need to set a conflagration.

Bankers are lynxes. To expect any gratitude from them is equivalent to attempting to move the wolves of the Ukraine to pity in the middle of winter.

Beauty is the greatest of human powers. Any power without counterbalance or control becomes autocratic and leads to abuse and to folly. Despotism in a government is insanity; in woman, fantasy.

Behind every great fortune there is a crime.

By and large, women have a faith and a morality peculiar to themselves; they believe in the reality of everything that serves their interest and their passions.

By dint of making sacrifices, a man grows interested in the person who exacts them. Great ladies, like courtesans, know this truth by instinct.

By resorting to self-resignation, the unfortunate consummate.

Can you find a man who loves the occupation that provides him with a livelihood? Professions are like marriages; we end by feeling only their inconveniences.

Charity is not one of the virtues practiced on the stock market. The heart of a bank is but one of many viscera.

A careful observation of Nature will disclose pleasantries of superb irony. She has for instance placed toads close to flowers.

A Creole woman is like a child, she wants to possess everything immediately; like a child, she would set fire to a house in order to fry an egg. In her languor, she thinks of nothing; when passionately aroused, she thinks of any act possible or impossible.

A deist is an atheist with an eye cocked for the off-chance of some advantage.

A girl fresh from a boarding school may perhaps be a virgin but no! she is never chaste.

A grass blade believes that men build palaces for it to grow in. Grass wedges its way between the closest blocks of marble and it brings them down. This power of feeble life which can creep in anywhere is greater than that of the mighty behind their cannons.

A great love is a credit opened in favor of a power so consuming that the moment of bankruptcy must inevitably occur.

A husband can commit no greater blunder than to discuss his wife, if she is virtuous, with his mistress; unless it be to mention his mistress, if she is beautiful, to his wife.

A knowledge of mankind and of things that surround us gives us that second education which proves far move valuable than our first because it alone turns out a truly accomplished man.

A lover teaches a wife all her husband has kept from her.

A man wastes his time going to hear some of our eloquent modern preachers; they may change his opinions, but never his conduct.

A man who stops at nothing short of the law is very clever indeed!

A man's own vanity is a swindler that never lacks for a dupe.

A married woman is a slave you must know how to seat upon a throne.

A naked woman is less dangerous than one who spreads her skirt skillfully to cover and exhibit everything at once.

A rent in your clothes is a mishap, a stain on them is a vice.

A vocation is born to us all; happily most of us meet promptly our twin,--occupation.

A woman filled with faith in the one she loves is the creation of a novelist's imagination.

A woman in love has full intelligence of her power; the more virtuous she is, the more effective her coquetry.

A woman in the depths of despair proves so persuasive that she wrenches the forgiveness lurking deep in the heart of her lover. This is all the more true when that woman is young, pretty, and so decollete as to emerge from the neck of her gown in the costume of Eve.

A woman must be a genius to create a good husband.

A woman questions the man who loves exactly as a judge questions a criminal. This being so, a flash of the eye, a mere word, an inflection of the voice or a moment's hesitation suffice to expose the fact, betrayal or crime he is attempting to conceal.

A woman's greatest charm consists in a constant appeal to a man's generosity by a gracious declaration of helplessness which fills him with pride and awakens the most magnificent feelings in his heart.

A woman's sentimental monkeyshines will always deceive her lover, who invariably waxes ecstatic where her husband necessarily shrugs his shoulders.

A woman, even a prude, is not long at a loss, however dire her plight. She would seen always to have in hand the fig leaf our Mother Eve bequeathed to her.

According to man's environment, society has made as many different types of men as there are varieties in zoology. The differences between a soldier, a workman, a statesman, a tradesman, a sailor, a poet, a pauper and a priest, are more difficult to seize, but quite considerable as the differences between a wolf, a lion, an ass, a crow, a sea-calf, a sheep, and so on.

...as I was young and easy at the mercy of his means *

Yannis Stavrou, Red Ships, oil on canvas

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me

Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,

In the moon that is always rising,

Nor that riding to sleep

I should hear him fly with the high fields

And wake to to the farm forever fled from the childless land,

Oh as I was young and easy at the mercy of his means,

Time let me green and dying

Though I sang in my chains like the sea

______________________________

* Dylan Thomas, from "Fern Hill"