In the January 13th issue of New Scientist was a report about a series of measurements designed to determine the mass of protons. Despite the extreme precision of the equipment [designed to be accurate to one part in ten billion] the discrepancy between the various sets of measurements by different laboratories was even greater – something like four standard deviations, which, according to the article, has a probability of less than 3/10 of one percent. Part of the problem in measuring protons is that their mass varies depending on the configuration of the nucleus of the atom being measured, so that, although both a deuteron and a helium-3 atom contain two protons, one neutron, and one electron, the total mass differs as a result of the internal configuration of the nucleus.

What I find interesting about this seemingly rather pedantic discussion about the accuracy of determining the mass of a proton is the assumption, which underlies the entire basis of science, that a proton should have the same mass in the same configuration at all times. So far, repeated measurements are suggesting that this may not be so.

Einstein’s theory of relativity works on a cosmic scale, but not on a sub-atomic scale, while quantum mechanics work on a sub-atomic scale but not on a cosmic scale, and for almost a century scientists have been working on a “theory of everything” that would unify the two.

Now… add to that the problem of dark matter. Way back in 1970, the astronomer Vera Rubin discovered that the stars in the Andromeda Galaxy revolve around the galactic center at the same speed, unlike the planets in our solar system, where the inner planets move much faster than the outer planets. This research was the basis for the confirmation of dark matter, but the problem remains that while a huge variety of measurements indicates that dark matter exists, to date no scientist has been able to identify or measure any individual constituent of dark matter, although the sterile neutrino is considered one of the possible components.

A similar problem exists with dark energy. According to the standard model of cosmology, the universe cannot be expanding at its present rate without the contribution of dark energy, and the best current measurements indicate that dark energy contributes 68.3% of the total energy in the universe. The mass–energy of dark matter and ordinary matter contribute 26.8% and 4.9%, respectively, and other components such as neutrinos and photons contribute a very small amount. But, again, no one has been yet able to detect or measure such energy.

One of the reasons that scientists have theorized the existence of both dark matter and dark energy is the assumption of uniformity, i.e., that the speed of light, the force of gravitation [or in Einstein’s terms, the mass-warping of spacetime], and the various “atomic” weights and forces are constant throughout the universe. So far as light and gravity are concerned, they certainly have seemed to be uniform in our small section of our galaxy.

Except now… there’s a real question of the uniformity of the mass of the proton, and I have to ask whether that might suggest that on a vast cosmic scale there’s not the standard uniformity that scientists have assumed.

Language and literature reflect culture. That’s a truism, one that’s accurate, yet there’s an aspect of that truism that’s seldom explored. Everyone focuses on the additions to literature and to the new words and expressions, but almost never is there much examination of what’s gone out of fashion, or effectively been eliminated, in one way or another.

In one novel, I brought up the point that the change in meaning of the word “discriminate” had an untoward aspect to it. Once upon a time, the word “discriminate” was a positive term, meaning to choose wisely among alternatives. Now it means to treat others unfairly because of their race or skin color. What’s overlooked in this shift of meaning is that the English/American language has lost its only single word term meaning “to choose wisely” among alternatives.

That’s not an insignificant change for both the language and culture, because it implies that to rank or choose among alternatives is somehow no longer meaningful, perhaps even bad.

In past posts, I’ve lamented the loss of rhythm and rhyme in modern poetry, and the other day I came across an old recording, on the radio, of a hit song in the 1950s, “The Twelfth of Never.” One of the lines in the song reads, “I’ll love you till the poets run out of rhyme/ Until the Twelfth of Never, and that’s a long, long time…”

The poets have indeed run out of rhyme, but why? What does it mean, and what does that loss signify about our culture?

From what I can determine, modern poetry seems to present images and emotions. Some of those images are indeed striking, and the emotion ranges from stark and raw to delicate and nuanced. And almost none of it remains with the reader once he or she has turned from the page.

Rhyme and metered rhythm are largely what allow the human brain to retain structured human language unaltered. The ancients knew this well, and without the printing press and cheap reproduction of songs or poems, for either song or stories to last and be passed on, meter and rhythm were necessary.

What the change in poetry reflects is the triumph of transitory, contorted, and exaggerated images over the balance of words, meanings, rhyme, and rhythm that once were necessary to ensure that poetry endured. Today, printed paper copies, or electronic copies, ensure that no one needs to memorize poetry for it to last… at least theoretically.

But since the vast, vast majority of modern poetry is not, and cannot be, memorable, those images and emotions might as well be written on sand because there’s very little left in the mind of the reader to draw those readers back to such modern verse.

For the most part, modern verse has become a one-time consumable image, and because those word-images cannot compete in vividness to the electronic screen or to the thundered resonance of current popular song, most of which has an electric sameness to it, poetry has become less and less a vital part of literature and culture. A hundred fifty years ago, the great American poets were almost the equivalent of great pop stars. Most known poets today are popular as much as for their dramatic talents as for their words.

Either way, the words are now quickly forgotten, and the loss of what poetry once was reflects, in another way, our cultural obsession with momentary images.

There’s an old question about how one determines an honest politician, and the answer is that, when bribed, he stays bought.

Even by this shady definition, the current President isn’t an honest politician. Successful politics requires commitments and deal-making, even compromise. As the events surrounding the government shut-down over the weekend revealed, the President is perfectly willing to commit to something, and then change his mind, especially when some part of his “base” objects.

This behavior not only makes deal-making difficult, to say the least, but it reveals, again, that the President’s word can’t ever be trusted. It also reveals that Trump often doesn’t consider what’s acceptable to his base and what’s not. It’s one thing to refuse to agree to something because it’s not in one’s perceived political interest; it’s another to agree to something in order to obtain another desired end and then, after others have made concessions, to change your mind and go back on your word.

This makes the opposition not only angry, but also less likely to make future concessions. It also makes one’s supporters in Congress wary of attempting to find a middle ground, lest they have the President undercut them.

[Updated]As I write this, the House has agreed to, and the President has signed the Senate-authored short-term funding extension with the promise from the Republicans to the Democrats that some limited immigration reform will be taken up in the next three weeks, particularly a fix for DACA, so that the young people brought to the United States as children don’t face deportation threats to countries most have never even known. The Democrats offered a compromise in terms of some funding for Trump’s wall, which Trump first accepted, and then decided against.

If either the President or the Republicans renege on that promise to deal with DACA, the next year is going to be especially bitter in Washington, D.C., and I suspect that bitterness will harm the Republicans far more than the Democrats, but then, it’s an emotional issue, and emotional issues are almost never decided by ‘reason.’

It’s too bad that Congress can’t act on the emotional appeal of nearly a million young people and children who’ve grown up here, most of whom think of themselves as Americans, and who’ve never known any other country, but that emotional appeal, so far, at least, has lost out to the generally right-wing visceral dislike of anyone who wasn’t born here and isn’t descended from “white-bread” stock, despite the fact that every single American citizen, even including Native Americans, is either an immigrant or descended from immigrants, most of whom couldn’t have gotten into the country “legally” under current immigration laws.

But then, it’s pretty clear that the issue for Congress and the President isn’t about fixing the problem, or any problem, but about avoiding blame from those who neither want to recognize the problems nor to accept solutions that deal with the concerns of both sides.

There’s been a lot of talk about majority rule, and what it means, including the fact that, although Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by almost three million votes, she lost the election in the Electoral College. Or the fact that in a number of states, including Wisconsin, the political party that controls the most seats in the state legislature actually received less votes than the “minority” party.

The other day I came across another set of statistics that provided additional insight on the issue, even though I couldn’t say that I was necessarily surprised. A national poll by the Gallup organization revealed that 61% of Republicans believed that President Trump was leading the Republican Party and the country in the right direction, but that 71% of all voters, including Republicans, believed the opposite, that Trump was taking the country in the wrong direction.

Now, on first glance the figures don’t seem to add up, but they actually do. Currently 25% of all voters identify themselves as Republicans, and 61% believe in Trump’s policy direction. That means that the Republicans supporting Trump only amount to 15% of the voting population. Add to that the fact that only 7% of Democrats believe Trump’s policies are good for the country, and since 27% of all voters identify as Democrats, these Democrats represent about 25% of the electorate. Then add in the 48% of voters who call themselves independents, and 68% of them oppose Trump’s policies.

So… the political party that represents, theoretically, 25% of the population is enacting policies opposed by 71% of the people. While the government is stable and at least marginally functioning, can the United States actually be considered a functioning democracy in the sense that government reflects the wishes of the majority?

One of the dangers of being a writer is that there’s a tendency for some people, thankfully usually a minority, to make all sorts of assumptions about you, based not even on what you write, but on what those readers thought you wrote or how they believe a given character reflects your personal beliefs.

Over the years, I’ve been accused of being everything from a right-wing ultra-conservative to a far leftist. Part of that is because I engage in thought experiments in my writing, raising questions based on what would happen if a government or an individual had a particular political slant, and more than a few times, in different books, the protagonist and those around him take very different philosophical positions. In Adiamante, Ecktor deJanes and the demis believe that they should NEVER take an offensive action first, no matter what the cost, and they act in accord with that belief, even when the cost is horrendous. I addressed another side of that issue with The Parafaith War and The Ethos Effect, where Trystin Desoll initially implements a compromise of sorts… and then comes to the decision that preemptive action, rather than reaction, is the only solution that makes sense. Over the years, in both F&SF, I’ve presented multiple workable and very different governing systems, including matriarchal societies. [I will admit that there is one consistent theme/belief in my work – that political extremism of any sort is a disaster.]

I’ve also had readers accuse me of repeating, verbatim, episodes that, first, I never wrote before and then accuse me of “cutting and pasting.” I don’t mind owning up to the mistakes I made, but it’s a bit difficult to deal with readers who insist on something that simply isn’t so, because they firmly believe that what they remember is what I wrote – even when I didn’t.

Then, there’s also the problem of people making assumptions about your family members, based on what you write. The Soprano Sorceress tells the story of an opera singer and junior professor who finds herself in a medieval-level world where magic is controlled by music. I obviously drew on the expertise of my wife, who is an opera singer and voice and opera professor, but neither of us ever expected what happened to her one day several years ago, when a new voice student introduced herself to my wife and immediately announced, “I’ve read The Soprano Sorceress, and I know all about you.”

Yes, there is some of me in everything I write, as there is with every writer, but when you’re as old as I am and you’ve been with as many people in as many settings, it’s better for everyone that readers not to make too many assumptions.