Twisted Sex

TWISTED SEX

Our kids play dice with neutrinos
Dark Matter's their nursery toy
We've mastered and mistressed the cosmos
Using truth, love, beauty and joy.

We exchange the standard quantum intimacy
We give and get Galactic Kiss
We've used our minds to merge with Nature
But we're truly baffled by this:

From death to birth
What makes Earth
The only place in Multiverse
Where "Fuck you!" is a curse?

J. Orlin Grabbe (1947-2008)

For the past several years my favorite spot on the web has been J. Orlin Grabbe's daily updated website. Orlin was fascinated by the edges of society, its dark underbelly, with hidden secrets, lies in the guise of truth, and weirdness of all varieties. Each morning I would pour myself a cup of coffee and delve into Orlin's latest collection of strange and forbidden knowledge ranging from the latest experiments in quantum mechanics to outlandish political and financial manipulations.

J. Orlin Grabbe earned degrees from Berkeley and Harvard in economics, taught at Wharton School of Business at University of Pennsylvania and is the author of "International Financial Markets" a definitive textbook on derivatives and other financial instruments, deemed important enough to be translated into Chinese. Grabbe was by nature a maverick and participated in many libertarian financial operations such as FX Systems, Laissez Faire City, Dodge City and the Digital Monetary Trust. He worked for some time in Dubai, then moved to Costa Rica where he died of a heart attack on March 15, 2008.

Fortunately, some of his buddies continue to add to and maintain his remarkable website where a portion of his writings, including papers on economics, satire and quantum mechanics are archived. Adios, Orlin. I miss you.

Ginni's Valentine

A clever Christian crossword Valentine from my pal Ginni in Spring Valley, CA. Thank you, Ginni. Happy Saint Valentine's Day.

And check out Randall Monroe's Sierpinski Valentine at xkcd.com.

2000-year-old Pickup Line

by PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO (Ovid) 

author of Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love)

written during reign of Caesar Augustus. 

Adapted into American English 

beginning of reign of Barack Obamicus 

by NICK HERBERT (Doctor Jabir)

WITH HOW YOU LOOKS 

AND HOW I WRITES

BABY, I COULD PUT 

YOUR NAME IN LIGHTS!

Time destroys flints and iron plowshares

but poetry is indestructible

greater than kings and their triumphs

rarer than Spanish gold.

The crowd goes for tinsel. I choose golden Apollo.

I get high and inspired on Castalian water.

My special gift is verse, the praise of true beauty.

If I choose, my art can make you famous.

Dresses rip, jewels and golden trinkets break

but poetic fame is a gift that shines forever.

Follow my lead, honey 

and I swear by my Poet's Laurels

that two thousand years from now

they'll still be talking about you and me.

You shall be theme and inspiration.

My verse the mirror of your merit.

Io, the timid heifer

Leda, who loved a swan

Europa at sea, holding tight to a bull's horns--

these women owe their fame to verse.

Like them, verse can make you famous for all time

your name and mine--linked together 

wherever Latin is spoken.

Te mihi felicem in carmina praebe*.

Make us both happy, lady. You know how.

O Beauty, who puts Aphrodite's candle out,

don't hesitate.

Give your Ovid something good to write about.

(*Let your felicity spill into my verses.)

The Chambers of My Heart

THE CHAMBERS OF MY HEART

The chambers of my heart:
Kitchen, parlor, boudoir, attic, den,
Hallway, basement, study, bathroom.

The chambers of my heart:
Rooms for receiving guests.

ELIZABETH ROSE RASUMNY HERBERT (1938-2002)

[As a rose among the flowers of the field

so is my beloved among women.

-- Song of Songs]

New Law of Nature

A year ago, at the Quantum Tantra Ashram, while working on a design for a time machine, I discovered a brand new law of nature.

Something like this had happened before. In 1982 I published a design for a time machine (FTL communicator based on a hypothetical quantum cloning device) that I called FLASH. The FLASH concept was refuted by William Wooters & Wojciech Zurek who proved the famous "quantum no-cloning theorem" which is now playing a central role in the field of quantum computing. Unlike classical computation in which you can always back up your data by exactly copying the bits in a register, the no-cloning theorem is a basic law of nature that prevents you from exactly copying a register of qubits (quantum bits). On the other hand, the no-cloning theorem proves itself useful in the design of quantum encryption schemes whose security is guaranteed by God Herself.

Since the quantum equations are reversible, anti-cloning (a special kind of deletion) is also forbidden.

Meanwhile, back at the Ashram, I was obsessing on a design for a new time machine my sweet Muse had laid upon me that I fancifully named ETCALLHOME. Just prior to publication on the online physics arXiv, Lev Vaidman from Tel Aviv refuted it. So I published both my scheme and Vaidman's refutation here to warn wannabe superluminal signaling designers against this approach.

But ETCALLHOME was only one of a class of FTL communicators based not on cloning but on the ability to coax two unknown quanta into the same state--a process I call "quantum wedding". Could I show that not only was ETCALLHOME an impossible FTL scheme but so were all such quantum-wedding-based FTL devices? With a little algebra, similar to the arguments of Wooters and Zurek, I was able to propose and prove a brand new law of nature--that a pair of quanta cannot be wed.

Furthermore, because of quantum reversibility, nature also forbids quantum divorce.

A Pair of Quanta Cannot Be Wed
http://arxiv.org/abs/0802.1536

THE FIVE COMMANDMENTS
OF QUANTUM COMPUTING

When you compute with single quanta
You can't always do the things you wanta
Computation of the quantum kind
Means keeping these five rules in mind:

A single quantum can't be known.
A single quantum can't be cloned.
To reverse cloning, No, She said.
And a pair of quanta can't be wed.
Plus the opposite of course:
Nature abhors a Q-divorce.

PCs and Macs don't work this way.
At least mine didn't yesterday.
But might not our own imaginations
Be flesh-based quantum computations?

On First Ingesting a New Psychedelic Drug

ON FIRST INGESTING
A NEW PSYCHEDELIC DRUG
(for Ann and Sasha Shulgin)

I'd like the key to the quantum underworld
Like to enter the place where phenomena start
I'd like a white-hot date with the Cosmos
Like to let Miss Universe into my heart.

I'd like to dive right down to the heart of the matter
Where mathematics dissolves into bodily bliss
I'd like a white-hot date with the Cosmos
Like to give Momma Nature an intimate kiss.

I'd like a white-hot date with the Cosmos
Like to reach inside Her Beautiful Dress
I'd like a backstage pass to Gaia's Mysteries
I'd like the Sacred Secret's unlisted address.

To appreciate deliciousness otherwise missed
I'd like to freshly feel, to view and to touch
Opening self wide to Deep Ruthless Reality
I'd like more, more, more but not too much.

(Graphic via Mark Buchanan's Kazoo)

To celebrate the Valentine Zone
coming next week
1. A love poem by Betsy
2. 2000-year-old pickup line by Nick