"a creative interaction of observation with imagination"

One of my favorite polymaths died.  He was 96.

Freeman J. Dyson, a mathematical prodigy who left his mark on subatomic physics before turning to messier subjects like Earth’s environmental future and the morality of war, died on Friday at a hospital near Princeton, N.J. He was 96.

I learned a lot from Dyson's writings, even when I didn't fully understand them, which was almost always the case.

Even the title for this post is his words. 

[Science] is only a small part of human capability. We gain knowledge of our place in the universe not only from science but also from history, art, and literature. Science is a creative interaction of observation with imagination. ... Imagination by itself can still enlarge our vision when observation fails.

As I noted in that blog-post, if only science were taught that way, along with art and literature and everything else.  "a creative interaction of observation with imagination"

Reviewing my blog-posts in which I refer to Freeman Dyson, I find that I truly enjoy them all.  I suppose I was also drawn to his irreverent approach--a trait of his that the obituary also notes:

In a profile of Dr. Dyson in 2009 in The New York Times Magazine, his colleague Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate, observed, “I have the sense that when consensus is forming like ice hardening on a lake, Dyson will do his best to chip at the ice.”

Even when it came to religion:

He was religious, but in an unorthodox way, believing good works to be more important than theology.
“Science is exciting because it is full of unsolved mysteries, and religion is exciting for the same reason,” he said in his Templeton Prize acceptance speech. “The greatest unsolved mysteries are the mysteries of our existence as conscious beings in a small corner of a vast universe.”

One more giant exits stage left!

Stocks permanently high!

The President of these United States is worried.  About how the market conditions will affect his re-election.  It is always only about him--the people be damned!

People are realizing that Covid19 could affect the interconnected global economy in a number of different ways that won't do any good.  And investors are trying to get out of the market grabbing the dollar bills as they rush to the exits.

The emperor has no economic clothes after all!  The liar-in-chief stands bare naked!

The following is a copy/paste of my post from June 2018:
***********************

The Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms famously asked a bunch of eminent academics at the London School of Economics why nobody noticed the Great Recession before it arrived.

A simple question that all of us regular people have.  Of course, all the economists do was hem and haw and look the other way.  After all, as the joke goes, economists have correctly predicted 7 of the past 4 recessions!

Predicting the next recession is not easy.  It is impossible.  But, hey, I am not an economist; so, it is not like my reputation is on the line or anything ;)  But, I wonder if we are getting closer and closer to the next one.

Four years after the Queen asked that question, she got an answer:

Sujit Kapadia from the Bank's financial services committee gave the Queen three reasons why the crisis happened - one of which was that it was rare event which made it difficult to predict.
He added: "People thought markets were efficient, people thought regulation wasn't necessary. Because the economy was stable there was this growing complacency,"
"Thirdly, people didn't realise just how interconnected the system had become."
The Queen replied: "I suppose, in money terms, it is very difficult to foresee. But people had got a bit lax. Have they?"

The system is even more interconnected compared to a decade ago.  We have in power at the Oval Office, in the Senate, and in the House, maniacs who believe that regulation is unnecessary.  And, we the people have become a tad too complacent. They don't add up well, do they?

Rapid technological advances are propelling the U.S. economy into a new paradigm, unemployment is the lowest in decades, corporate debt is rising, inflation is dormant and the expansion is one of the longest on record, even if growth isn’t that hot.
Much of that growth is being driven by consumer spending fueled not by rising income, but by borrowing more and running down savings, which have slumped to historically low levels.
Sound like the U.S. economy today? Yes, it does. It’s also the U.S. economy of July 2000

Yep, American consumers are at it again. Spending the money that we don't have, confident that the boom times will continue forever.

So, for how long can consumers can carry on spending, while saving practically nothing at all?

“The toxic mix of rising interest rates, falling savings, low or falling incomes and high levels of corporate debt is a train crash waiting to happen,” said Ann Pettifor, director at Policy Research in Macroeconomics in London. 

Any other perspectives?

The historically low household savings rate has caught the eye of Bernstein, which is now at least partially reconsidering its positive economic outlook for 2018.
 "A big financial shock — which is a plausible scenario for 2018 — not only would damage the consumption forecast but could end the expansion itself," Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak, an economist at Bernstein, wrote in a client note. "For 2018 it remains a core cyclical recession scenario in our coverage."

Always keep in mind that the day before the stock market crash of 1929, an eminent economist of the day, Irving Fisher, made the worst prediction ever:

Source

Inca to India

The samosa was in the news.  Thanks to the demagogue of my adopted land visiting with the demagogue of the old country.

The visiting demagogue and his trophy wife apparently did not bother to touch the samosas that they were served. 

No, that was not the big controversy. 

The brouhaha was because it was a broccoli samosa, which led one commentator to snark that tRump is "a broccoli samosa in an aloo matar world."

Aloo is Hindi for potatoes, and matar is peas.  One big time chef grumbled on NPR: "Broccoli, as far as I know, is not a native vegetable to India. So if it were me, I would want to showcase the vegetables from India."

Ahem, has he forgotten that potatoes are not native to India?  Aloo is pukka firangi ;)

Peru is the geographic home for potatoes.

My paternal grandmother, who lived with us throughout most of my childhood--she died when I was in high school--referred to a bunch of different vegetables as "English vegetables" for a good reason: they were not native to the geography and culture, and they were foreign.  Almost always, anything foreign became "English" thanks to the Bastard Raj.

A family lore is that when her brother went to Bombay many, many decades ago, he stayed with one of the extended family members.  A special, very special, vegetable was served at lunch for him--green beans.  Yes, one of those "English vegetables" that was rare back in the village. 

We now routinely use potatoes.  Almost every single day, anywhere on this planet.  Many of my people stay away from potatoes because of the carbs and the worry over diabetes.

Extending my grandmother's framework, this combination of potatoes with other ingredients is not even English, but is international, if we go by the geographic origins:

Potato: Peru
Chili: South America
Cilantro: Mediterranean

The humble samosa that has potatoes and red chilies and cilantro is not really Indian, is it? ;)