336
accounted for within any perceived ecological space. This segues into our futile
grasping after probabilities, of any given numeric coefficient for biodiversity in a
fixed community of species. The “answer” to such quests is more than elusive, for
they rely on Pi-driven equations. Species richness and heterogeneity—the latter
being the measure of relative abundance of individuals within that overall species
deduction—equates with nothing less than our fumbling calculations to determine
just how many digits are out there, whether with regard to stars or atoms; populations or the singular unambivalence of a specific personage; a Mona Lisa, or an
equation involving n = the number of individuals of a specific species, and N = the
total number of beings of all species combined.
Such speculation leaves us with the endless digits of Pi well beyond the trillions.
Just consider the average 100 trillion neural connections in the brain of Homo sapiens; then multiply that by all individuals of all species (every prokaryote) (perhaps
100 million + [some argue over one billion] such species), and then compound that
combinatorial amalgam by volume, pressure, weight, and space occupied by the
unimaginable, physical attributes, and the history of science is laid bare.
38.2 Between One and Infinity
Between one and infinity, we also introduce the entire panoply of ascribed behavior,
of psychology, every branch of ethics, all those inroads to despair and exit strategies
recommending hope.
5
Having provided the groundwork for endless numeric characterizations of the physical universe, little wonder that—with it—human hubris
has discovered no bounds. Hence, scientists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider
(LHC) celebrated in the summer of 2012 the instantaneous creation of a “quark
plasma” with an estimated temperature of 9.9 trillion degrees Fahrenheit (5.5 trillion Celsius).
6
Considering that the nearest star to earth harbors a core temperature
of approximately 27 million degrees Fahrenheit (15 million degrees Celsius), one
can only wonder what the proponents within the European Organization for Nuclear
Research, created at the height of the Cold War in 1954, are actually thinking/doing.
CERN’s mission statement has been “to uncover what the universe is made of and
how it works”.
7
The circular collider—27 kilometers long making it the world’s
largest machine—is underground, between 50 and 175 meters, so that the earth’s
crust can allegedly protect all of us from its radiation. Unlike the legacy of Bikini
Atoll with its World War II 15 Mt. Castle Bravo nuclear test and the subsequent
cultural mayhem resulting from strontium-90 and caesium-137 contaminations,
5 See Barcelona Field Studies Centre, https://geographyfieldwork.com/Simpson’sDiversityIndex.
htm, Accessed January 15, 2020.
6 See “CERN scientists may have set new man-made heat record: 9.9 trillion degrees Fahrenheit,”
by Adi Robertson, Aug 15, 2012, The Verge, https://www.theverge.com/2012/8/15/3244513/cernscientist-hottest-man-made-temperature, Accessed January 15, 2020.
7 https://home.cern/about/who-we-are/our-mission. Accessed January 15, 2020.
38 The Last Numbers of Emptiness
accounted for within any perceived ecological space. This segues into our futile
grasping after probabilities, of any given numeric coefficient for biodiversity in a
fixed community of species. The “answer” to such quests is more than elusive, for
they rely on Pi-driven equations. Species richness and heterogeneity—the latter
being the measure of relative abundance of individuals within that overall species
deduction—equates with nothing less than our fumbling calculations to determine
just how many digits are out there, whether with regard to stars or atoms; populations or the singular unambivalence of a specific personage; a Mona Lisa, or an
equation involving n = the number of individuals of a specific species, and N = the
total number of beings of all species combined.
Such speculation leaves us with the endless digits of Pi well beyond the trillions.
Just consider the average 100 trillion neural connections in the brain of Homo sapiens; then multiply that by all individuals of all species (every prokaryote) (perhaps
100 million + [some argue over one billion] such species), and then compound that
combinatorial amalgam by volume, pressure, weight, and space occupied by the
unimaginable, physical attributes, and the history of science is laid bare.
38.2 Between One and Infinity
Between one and infinity, we also introduce the entire panoply of ascribed behavior,
of psychology, every branch of ethics, all those inroads to despair and exit strategies
recommending hope.
5
Having provided the groundwork for endless numeric characterizations of the physical universe, little wonder that—with it—human hubris
has discovered no bounds. Hence, scientists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider
(LHC) celebrated in the summer of 2012 the instantaneous creation of a “quark
plasma” with an estimated temperature of 9.9 trillion degrees Fahrenheit (5.5 trillion Celsius).
6
Considering that the nearest star to earth harbors a core temperature
of approximately 27 million degrees Fahrenheit (15 million degrees Celsius), one
can only wonder what the proponents within the European Organization for Nuclear
Research, created at the height of the Cold War in 1954, are actually thinking/doing.
CERN’s mission statement has been “to uncover what the universe is made of and
how it works”.
7
The circular collider—27 kilometers long making it the world’s
largest machine—is underground, between 50 and 175 meters, so that the earth’s
crust can allegedly protect all of us from its radiation. Unlike the legacy of Bikini
Atoll with its World War II 15 Mt. Castle Bravo nuclear test and the subsequent
cultural mayhem resulting from strontium-90 and caesium-137 contaminations,
5 See Barcelona Field Studies Centre, https://geographyfieldwork.com/Simpson’sDiversityIndex.
htm, Accessed January 15, 2020.
6 See “CERN scientists may have set new man-made heat record: 9.9 trillion degrees Fahrenheit,”
by Adi Robertson, Aug 15, 2012, The Verge, https://www.theverge.com/2012/8/15/3244513/cernscientist-hottest-man-made-temperature, Accessed January 15, 2020.
7 https://home.cern/about/who-we-are/our-mission. Accessed January 15, 2020.
38 The Last Numbers of Emptiness