Invitation to be Chinese
What a disgrace that all of you keep writing “Taiwan and China” and “Taiwanese and Chinese.” Does the mainland [China] have a copyright on the word “China?” Taiwan is the Republic of China (ROC) and China is the People’s Republic of China (PRC), so why not “ROC and PRC?” Not that I advocate the notion of “two Chinas.”
I am from New York and I am a proud American-Chinese. Are Taiwanese ashamed to say they are Taiwanese Chinese? Should I start calling myself Americanese?
John Chiu
New York
Universal answer to come
The excellent article in the Taipei Times, (“A century ago, Einstein’s theory of relativity changed everything,” Nov. 28, page 9) was beautifully written and leaves one with the impression that relativity provides a complete answer of the mechanics driving the motions of the solar system. Every article like this leaves out an important piece of information; relativity tells us why bodies move without a physical connection, but it does not, and cannot tell us “how” the solar system moves.
Relativity obeys the laws of physics, which have at their core the second law of thermodynamics. This states quite clearly that physics only moves from order to disorder. You will notice that leads to a contradiction: The solar system started out as rubble and dust, but ended up as a clock so accurate it keeps time better than human mechanical devices. This is disorder ending up not only in regular motion, but the startling beauty and harmony as seen in Saturn’s rings.
Physics says this is allowed, but does not provide any mechanism. If it did, we get a contradiction described in a mathematical proof written by Kurt Godel, The Incompleteness Theory. Physics is never going to provide an answer that collapses the logic of its own being.
This problem was first uncovered by Newton, who found his equations only worked for two bodies. Worse, Henri Poincare proved in 1887 that there are no equations that describe the motion of three bodies. If it looks like science is beginning to unravel here, that is because it is!
We know the physics of atomic structures is correct, we know the physics of gravitational structures is correct, but there are two very different kinds of physics, neither of which can describe how atomic structures and gravitational structures end up in the order we observe in cells and solar systems.
Now we are stuck. Modern science comes to a dead end here: two incompatible theories of physics that cannot explain anything as complex as three bodies moving in space, or how the bodies of animals contain nothing but elements.
One can stare at the periodic table all day, but will never be able to predict all the chemical complexity that makes up a rainforest. The internals of a single cell has millions of complex interactions every second, a rainforest goes off the chart. Universities do not present information like this, it would simply confuse students and lead to a lack of confidence.
There is a complete and consistent answer, and that answer will be put before teams from universities and The National Museum of Science. This is the peer review demanded by the discipline of science.
On Dec. 26, a theory will be laid out that shows how the universe is not a predictable physical structure at all. In fact, it is all built from entities that have no properties of volume or substance.
Base quantum entities have no properties except mathematical ones. The universe can be described correctly as a mathematical system that self assembles and is nothing more than a relationship between energy, information and time; a computer based upon binary and complex computations. It can be simplified down to a matrix written by Paul Dirac. Shocking stuff, but the theory can answer all of the above problems without ending up in a contradiction.
The answer is already being put to good use in industry and schools are rewriting curriculums in which all information cross references. Students are taught mathematics and science as a single, integrated subject. It turns out that the universe is a sensible place after all; it does obey the demands of first-order logic.
It might not be what Newton wanted, a predictable physical place, but who says it has to be what humans want, it is just how it needs to be to self-assembled from the mathematical entities at the base.
P.A. Cook
Taichung
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Actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) on March 13 posted an Instagram caption after the opening of Tiffany’s Taipei flagship store two days earlier that read: “Thank you Tiffany for inviting us to Taipei China.” We know that Yeoh knows Taipei is in Taiwan, not China, because the caption was posted following comments she made — in English — in which she said: “Thank you to Tiffany for bringing me to Taipei, because I do love this country very much.” Her remarks and the subsequent Instagram caption were reported in Taiwan, in Chinese and English- language media such as Radio Free Asia, and overseas,
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