Macrocosm, Man and Microcosm - Relative sizes in our universe

Macrocosm, Man and Microcosm - Relative sizes in our universe

We have learned about the origin of the universe ( the largest macrocosm ). Because of the Big Bang theory, we have been led to the study of the very small worlds of atoms, elementary particles, and singularities ( the tiniest of microcosm ). Where does man stand ? Actually, we are in the middle to complete the balanced and symmetrical picture that is so typical of this beautiful and wondrous universe.

Let us begin with sizes. How large is an atom ? It is 1/10 to the 10 power of 1 cm. As mentioned before, the traditional image of an atom ( the Rutherford atom ) such as the huge model built as an observation tower in Brussels, Belgium has a compact nucleus with electrons orbiting it. The nucleus is again many times smaller than the whole atom. It is 1/10 to the power of 15 of 1 cm. To give you some relative scale of things, if the atomic nucleus were the size of a pin head, the electron in the orbit nearest to it would be the size of a football stadium. Therefore, there is still a lot of empty inner space comparable to the empty outer space between the stars and galaxies. Again, if the atom were the size of an apple, the whole apple would be as big as the whole of the earth itself.

To complete the picture as to where human beings stand, it would be helpful to picture men in the middle of a diagram with the microworld to the left and the cosmos to the right. On the left, a living cell is 1/10 to the power of 5 of 1 cm. An atom is to the power of 10 ( as stated previously ). The atomic nucleus is to the power of 15. The quarks ( the constituents of the nucleus ) is to the power of 20. Then, on the right, a large mountain range is 10 to the power of 5 cm wide. The earth is to the power of 10. The Solar System is to the power of 15. Our Milky Way Galaxy is to the 20 power and, finally, the visible universe is 10 to the power of 25 cm in size. With regard to the number of atoms, each human being is made up of some 10 to the power of 29 atoms. There are a total of 10 to the power of 78 number of atoms in the entire visible universe. Our Galaxy has some 100 billion stars like our sun and there are at least the same number of galaxies in the visible universe. According to Martin Rees, It is actually no coincidence that the complex human machine has attained its optimum efficiency in terms of complexity and structural organization in the middle of the macrocosm and the microcosm because anything larger would be vulnerable to crushing by gravity. Even the various constants of nature are nicely and delicately placed. Paul Dirac who predicted antimatter and later proved it noted that the gravitational and electric forces both obey the inverse square law. The relative strengths of the two are extremmely large. The latter is 10 to the power of 39 more powerful than the former. If the differences were not that large the gravitational force would overwhelm and crush everything leaving no room for the electric force to work in all physical and bio-chemical reactions. The universe would have been a dead place. He was surprised to find out that the size of the visible universe also exceeds the size of a proton by the same factor. Even more surprising is the number of atoms in the universe which is 10 to the power of 78, the square of 10 to the power of 39. There is clearly an ultra-fine connection between all the vital constants of nature and a meticulously defined blueprint.

There are a number of different versions or models of the atom theorized by the scientists, there is the pioneering Joseph John Thomson's model proposed by him in 1897 which mainly consisted of a sphere of protons embedded with electrons. He was the teacher of Rutherford. In 1913, the Danish physicist Nielsl Bohr proposed the structure of his atom under Quantum Theory which is still the most widely accepted model. Under his theory the atom has no definite velocity or location. It is a fuzzy entity with a more confined centre called the atomic nucleus and its related electrons cloud orbiting the nucleus without any defined momentum and position. It can only be described by a set of wave-like probabilities and patterns in equations invented by Erwin Schrodinger in 1926. It is governed by the Uncertainty Principle put forward by Werner Heisenberg in 1927 which states that it is impossible to determine exactly both the position and momentum of an elementary particle ( such as a photon or electron ) simultaneously. 

Evidence for a Holographic Universe

Evidence for a Holographic Universe

The great American physicist Richard Feynman once said:-” There was a time when the newspapers said that only twelve men understood relativity. I do not believe there ever was such a time. There might have been a time when only one man did ( Einstein ). ....... On the other hand, I think I can safely say that nobody understood
quantum mechanics. “

The above quotation sums up the mystical nature of Quantum Theory in a nutshell. More than a century after Max Planck first pioneered the quantum concept no definitive explanation is forthcoming on the non-locality aspect of the theory despite the seasoned accuracy of the theory's predictions and applications. In fact, Quantum Theory is the most reliable scientific theory ever formulated by the scientists. Notwithstanding the numerous unsuccessful attempts to find a solution to this grand puzzle, there are some promising though farfetched propositions. One such theory is the Holographic Model first suggested by physicist David Bohm, a former student of Einstein and neuro-physicist Karl Pribram of Standford University. Stated briefly, it asserts that the visible universe is a giant hologram ( or illusion ) just like the three dimensional images used for communication purposes in sci-fi movies such as Star Trek and Star Wars.

The Holographic Model was inspired by the study of the memory function of the brain by Pribram. Based on numerous experimental results, he discovered that memory is not localized in any specific part of the human brain. In the case of brain damage suffered by human patients, the victim very often recovered certain neural abilities originally identified with the damaged part ot the brain. It was as if the other parts of the brain can adapt themselves to take over the functions formerly carried out by the damaged portion. In case of experiments carried out on rats which can still see after losing 90% of its brain cortex supposedly relating to vision, it was found that the remaining 10% can still carry out the basic neural function relating to vision. As regards damages to the human brain, the removal of a large portion of the patient's brain does cause hazy memory but never a specific part of the patient's memory showing that memory is not confined to or stored in any specific sections of the brain. This strange phenomenon is a puzzle that has troubled Pribram for some twenty years from the 1940s to the1960s. Then , he had a bright idea based on the nature of a hologram. Pribram found that there are many similarities between the characteristics of a hologram and the memory function of our brain.

A hologram is created by one beam of laser which is split into two separate components. Laser is the most condensed form of light and the purest. Therefore, it can produce images as clear and as vivid as the actual object itself. The first component beam is shone on the object to be photographed and the second component of the same beam is allowed to merge with the reflected light of the first and the resultant interference image is recorded on a photographic medium such as film. Under normal vision the interference image is just a blurred figure but when another laser beam is projected onto this interference image a vivid three-dimensional image of the original object is clearly visible. This image is a hologram of the original object.

Apart from the vivid and three-dimensional qualities of a hologram, there are many more miraculous characteristics in the principle of Holography or the techniques of creating holograms. One such special quality is what we call the whole in the parts. Like a piece of mirror, if a piece of holographic medium such as a slide of film is broken into small pieces, each small piece will still contain all the information necessary for recreating the whole image of the original object captured on that film, albeit on a smaller scale. This applies to all small pieces of the film without any exception. Thus, a hologram has enormous storage capacity for information. The most exciting feature of this quality is that Stephen Hawking and his team has recently discovered that the degree of entropy or disorder ( scrambled information ) of a black hole is proportional to the area of its event horizon. Common sense seems to indicate that the storage capacity of any container should be related to its volume instead of its surface area. This is obviously not true with regards to information. This is sometimes referred to as the Holographic Principle in relation to the storage of information. It has very significant implications on our understanding of the visible universe because physical stars greater than 2 times the sun's mass will end their lives as black holes. Stephen Hawking's discovery seems to indicate that black holes possess the characteristics of a hologram. Can there be any connection between the conversion of mass into energy and the creation of information ( or negative information or disorder ) ? If the degree of entropy in black holes is proportional to the area of the event horizon, does this imply that this universe possesses the characteristics of a hologram as well ? That the whole universe is, in fact, an image or illusion projected from a much deeper reality ?

Then, there is the quality of the enfolded ( hidden ) order. On the surface and under normal light, a hologram appears as some interference pattern but under another laser beam, the vivid image of the hidden object emerges. This is similar to order in chaos ( the interference image ). The Nobel Prize laureate, Ilya Prigogine who is a chemist discovered that certain chemical processes can be self-perpetuating from chaotic states to ordered states in defiance of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. He called such systems “dissipative structures” and won the Nobel prize for revealing their working secrets. However, the origins of dissipative structures remains a deep mystery. It is believed that solving this puzzle may lead to the key for unraveling the secret of the origin of life. At this stage, Prigogine speculates that such structures may have originated from a hidden order at a higher level of existence or reality. The view is very close to the the Hidden Variables Interpretation of Quantum Theory by Einstein and his camp. Being true to his mentor's philosophy, David Bohm has also been perfecting the Hidden Variables Theory. His interest in the global interconnectedness of the physical world has let him to join force with Pribram to develop the Holographic Model of the universe. If they can prove that the universe is actually an image projected from some inner or higher order of things under the Holographic Principle, then Einstein would be completely vindicated.

By 1980, Bohm had fully developed his notion of a Holographic Model of the universe and he presented his complete theory in his book called “ Wholeness and the implicate Order”. He called this deeper level of reality the implicate, hidden or enfolded order and our own physical level of existence the explicit or unfolded order. In brief, he claimed that our explicit or unfolded order is actually the holographic image projected from the implicit or enfolded order through the working of the Holographic Principle. He is of the opinion that our own physical world and all phenomena exhibited in it are the results of the unfolding and enfolding of these two levels of realities and their interactions with our human consciousness.

Under this interpretation of reality, the popping in and out of existence by elementary particles such as electrons and positrons ( the anti-particle of the electron ) pairs is viewed as the unfolding of the deeper reality ( in the case of electrons appearing ) and the enfolding of our reality back into the intricate order ( in the case of positrons annilhilating with electrons ). Complementarity where light behaves both as particles and waves is also understood in terms of the folding and unfolding of the implicate and explicit order. This interpretation also explains the existence of matter and anti-matter which is the implicate order of things in our own physical reality. On top of all these, Bohm's theory also seems to imply that both levels of existence have always co-existed in the forms of various force fields permeating space and all dimensions from time immemorial ( a vague reference to the Steady State Theory ? ). It is the unfolding and enfolding of these different levels of realities that give rise to all the physical phenomena that our consciousness can experience. The Big Bang would be considered as the unfolding of the implicate order and the beginning of our own physical level of reality but not of all levels of realities.

The most striking of Bohm's assertions is the WHOLENESS of existence which is philosophically and intellectually profound. His Holographic Model of the universe is asserting that there is a continuum connecting everything and everyone. As far as the working of each and every aspect of the universe is concerned, everything and everyone is not only made of the same thing ( namely, stardust ) but they are, in fact, the SAME THING or manifestations of the same thing from a deeper level, the implicate order. There is the intricate network that connects everything to everything else. This is the prime reason for NON-LOCALITY which is the crowning mystery in Quantum Theory. We are again reminded of the grand concept of “ Only Connect ! “. Exactly how the folding and unfolding of the intricate and explicit orders take place is still a matter for conjecture. However, suffice it to say at this stage of Bohm's theory that it is the first time in the arena of scientific research that a serious proposition is put forward to link the human consciousness to the occurrence of physical phenomena since the role of consciousness was first implicated in the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory. 

Non-Locality as proven by Bell's Inequality in theory and Alan Aspect in actual experimentation is indicative of a deeper reality or an implicate order. Just as in the case of set patterns exhibited by island chains in oceans which are all interconnected below the waves, the fact that non-locality exists points to a very high probability that a deeper reality is present.

Secondly, the possibility of the existence of the implicate order is
also favourably supported by Ilya Prigogine's theory of Dissipative Systems or Order in Chaos. Greater details will be described later in the chapter on Chaos. At this point, perhaps an actual example would illustrate the meaning and working of the Implicate or Enfolded Order. The reader may have come across a game or scientific display in many science museum worldwide. A cylindrical jar with a handle for turning is filled with glycerine and a few drops of black ink is put in the same jar. Upon turning the jar in one direction, the ink seems to disappear as it mixes up with the glycerine but when you reverse the direction of the turn the ink reappears. This is the actual operation of the enfolding ( hidding ) and unfolding ( reappearing ) of the Intricate Order. At the first turning, Chaos ensue as the ink mixes with the glycerine while Order unfolds on the reverse turn. Many phenomena in this world work in a similar manner. Therefore, never be discouraged when you are faced with any complex problem. It can most likely be solved if you deal with it in the proper sequence. Order in Chaos and Chaos in Order seem to be inherent in Nature and we shoud take note of this law of nature.

Thirdly, from Pribam's case studies over a period of a few decades in psychological and psychiatric patients many mental phenomena seem to suggest that the human brain displays many characteristics of a Hologram. The most noticeable ones include Lucid Dreams ( LD ), Out-of-Body-Experiences ( OBE ), Near Death Experiences ( NDE ), Multiple Personalities Disorder ( MPD ), Extra-Sensory Perception ( ESP ) and Reincarnation Claims ( RC ). We shall briefly examine each in turn. While we venture into the mystical, I must remind the reader of the words of caution I put forward in the preface of this book. The areas into which we are advancing are most interesting but the facts may not be totally conclusive by themselves. Before further definite research results are forthcoming, we should treat the inferences from these facts as scientific speculations only. Personally, however, I tend to accept them as very favourable circumstantial
evidence in support of Bohm's Holographic Universe Theory.

Going back to the various relevant mental phenomena, Lucid Dreams
( LD ) are dreams in which the dreamer is aware that he or she is dreaming. The details can be so vivid and clear that the dreamer can remember every detail and sensations experienced in a LD. The strangest of all is that some LD dreamer can be trained to have LD or to continue a particular LD after the dreamer has been awakened in the middle of one. Pribram is of the opinion that such dreams bear some similarities to the characteristics of a hologram. The hologram can generate a virtual image ( an optical illusion like a mirror ) behind the holographic film or medium as well as a real image resulting from the interaction of two laser light beams in front of the medium. We do not usually take notice of the real image because it is invisible most of the time unless some smoke or dust is present in the position occupied by the real image. Normal dreams are made up of virtual images of the hologram while LD is composed of real images from the hologram generated by our brain. As LD is composed of real images it is particularly vivid.

Out-of-Body Experience ( OBE ) refers to the subject encountering a mental situation of himself or herself being able to observe their physical self as an objective observer. Examples of OBE include patients undergoing surgery under general anaesthetics being able to describe the surgical procedures in exact details after waking up from the operation as if looking down on himself from above. The Holographic Theory attributes such ability to the patients' brains being able to project the consciousness hologram to the vantage point above the operation table and to observe the physical self which is also the holographic image created by the brain.

During Near Death Experiences ( NDE ), subjects invariably report seeing bright lights shining at the far end of some sort of tunnel and the feeling of peace and tranquility. Other reported details which bear close resemblance to a hologram include the ultra fast rewinding of the subjects' whole life in reverse motion but having real feelings of each and every important moments of their lives in quick reverse succession. The reader will recall that one special quality of the hologram in relation to the storage of information is the hologram's ability to recreate the whole image from even a very small piece of a holographic film like shattered pieces of a mirror. This indicates that the human brain may possess holographic abilities. Only during NDE can any person experience such a long sequence of events in a ultra quick but orderly fashion within a few moments. Considering that brain waves are the results of elementary particles such as electrons moving at the speed of light and the fact that memory cells are also composed of timeless elementary particles, such atemporal sensations in NDE are entirely probable.

Based on actual case studies by Pribram and other practising psychiatrists, mental patients suffering from Multiple Personalities Disorder ( MPD ) very often display physical reactions which defy all known laws of physics. For example, the subject patient who is normally allergic to a certain substance in his normal frame of mind may be immune to the same substance when he assumes a different personality. If a bee sting can kill him in his nomal mental state, there are officially recorded cases where the patients are known to be immune to the same bee sting in a different personality. There are even cases of MPD patients involving more than thirty different personalities which carry with them all the different biological reactions to the same substance that the normal personality is allergic to. Under Bohm's Holographic Principle of the universe MPD has the characteriistics of a hologram insofar as the compact storage capacity of the brain is concerned. Different personalities together with all their complex qualities and abilities can be entirely stored in our hologram brain.

Extra-Sensory Perception ( ESP ) is the ability to know things that are not
supposed to be detectable by the ordinary human senses. This may include foretelling the future correctly or mind reading. Sometimes ESP is the demonstrated in TV shows in mind reading across huge distances such as instantly reading what is drawn in a hidden piece of paper by a guest in a TV studio in New York by a psychic in London. The holographic view on such extraordinary ability is that the psychic is able to connect the explicit and implicit order and the person with ESP ability can some how apply the brain's holographic power of atemporal projection to locate and access information unavailable to the ordinary human senses in the normal physical or unfolded reality.

Very often we have heard about claims of reincarnation and stories from a previous life. Such Reincarnation Claims ( RC ) are sometimes very mind-boggling. There are cases where it is absolutely impossible for the claimant to know the facts in the story of that alleged previous life which are subsequently proven to be accurate. There was the case of a young Indian girl that lives in the Kashmir Region in northern India who claims that she had led a former life in California, USA. She has never been out of her native province but can describe in great detail the small Californian town she has alleged to have led her former life. The details of a small post office in the town that existed in the 1890s were accurately given by the young Indian girl. The post office no longer exists. Such details are unknown even to the current residents in that Californian town but nevertheless the details have been confirmed to be accurate from drawings found in the local museum. It is really remarkable. This case is but one of numerous documented RC cases which are now being investigated in earnest by qualified professional scientific researchers. According to the Holographic Theory, the human consciousness survives far beyond the explicit order that is our physical level of existence. Such ideas are reminiscent of both Buddhist and Hindu philosophy !
Apart from the above remarkable mental phenomena, one additional psychic ability that is often cited as one of the possible causes of some reported miracles which were witnessed by so many people that the facts could not be ignored. But scientists generally brushed the claims off by assuming that such unnatural events were mass hysteria and stopped at that. Most of them simply did not have the courage to investigate further for fear of being ridiculed by their peers. This very strange and powerful psychic ability is known as Psychokinesis (or PK ). Many documented cases of stigmata where the sufferers showed the same bleeding wounds as Jesus Christ after the crucifixtion have proven to have defied the laws of nature. In particular, the direction of the flow of the blood from the sufferers' wounds always remains to be away from the genuine wounds regardless of whether or not the sufferers' body positions are upright or inverted. This is a complete defiance of the laws of gravity. Such psychic ability of the sufferers is called PK by psychologists and psychiartrists of paranormal psychology. It was David Bohm's hypothesis that PK is the result of the special ability of the human subject based on the wave/particle duality of brain waves. When the related brain impulses which are a form of electromagnetic wave are particlelike, our consciousness would appear to be localized in our brain, but in its wavelike nature, our consciousness could produce remote or distant effects like a radio wave propagating meaningful signals. Bohm conjectured that one of these remote influences is PK. Despite the deliberate rejection of such hypothesis by the conventional or conservative scientists, some serious and respected researchers like Robert G. Jahn, a professor of aerospace sciences and dean emeritus of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton University was courageous enough to have founded the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) laboratory in 1979 to investigate such powerful psychic ability. Hopefully, more respected scientists would follow his footsteps to provide reliable experimental data as the basis of further research into this fascinating and mysterious aspect of our brain and consciousness. The huge potential impact of such research on our understanding of reality and our own consciousness cannot be ruled out. 

Grading China’s Communist Party Meeting: Big Talk, But C- Work - TIME

 Grading China’s Communist Party Meeting: Big Talk, But C- Work - TIME

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Governments always play catch up with markets. Today, China’s Communist Party ended its third plenum meeting laying out the country’s future development path, announcing that markets would have a “decisive” role in allocating resources. At the same time, Chinese shoppers were racking up the world’s biggest online shopping day in history—not just in China, but anywhere. Whatever the Party’s press communiqués might herald, markets are already at the heart of the Chinese economy: private firms represent 80% of urban employment, and 90% of new job creation in the country.

The information that was sorely missing from the Party’s 5,000-word wrap up memo was whether they are finally going to start getting the government priority they deserve. As Brookings China expert Cheng Li laid out in a recent analysis of the plenary, the dominant economic trend in China over the last few years as been what the Chinese call “the state advances as the private sector retreats.” It’s a trend that’s led to growing inequality, slower productivity growth, and a housing bubble, as TIME reported on this cover from 2011.

(MORE: One Place Where Brooklyn Is Not Cool)

Unfortunately, the Third Plenum communiqué didn’t signal a major shift in that direction, and actually included a call to further “consolidate and develop the state sector.” As Mark William, Capital Economics chief Asia economist puts it, “reformers will struggle to push piecemeal efforts against the opposition of vested interests.” Which is too bad, because China has represented the majority of the world’s new growth since the financial crisis. Here are three reforms that could help spur more of it, both in the Middle Kingdom, and the rest of the world:

1. Market reform. One of the reasons that China has a $10 trillion housing bubble is that people have no where to put their money except into state owned banks which pay low interest rates, and lend money mainly to unproductive state owned enterprises. If cities in particular could raise money in local municipal bond markets, they could find ways to fund growth that don’t further inflate a real estate bubble.

2. Land reform. While the communiqué included some mention of the need for equal treatment of rural and urban land, the truth is that Chinese peasants haven’t received their fair share of the wealth creation from land development. If proper prices were paid for land, and peasants were allowed to own and sell it, it would be what many economists have called the greatest wealth transfer in history. It would also radically shift and potentially destabilize China’s political landscape, which is one reason the Party is proceeding with caution.

3. Hukou reform. In China, rural people have radically different rights than urban dwellers. If they move from their villages to cities, they don’t have access to heath care, pensions, or education for their children. Yet in order for China to continue to grow, hundreds of millions more will have to do just that. It’s a problem that wasn’t mentioned explicitly in the communiqué, but China experts like Standard Chartered Bank believe hukou reform is still on the government’s agenda. Watch this space.

Read more: Grading China’s Communist Party Meeting: Big Talk, But C- Work | TIME.com http://business.time.com/2013/11/12/grading-chinas-communist-party-meeting-big-talk-but-c-work/#ixzz2kcnApavf

China’s leaders poised to unleash market forces after plenum - Financial Times

China’s leaders poised to unleash market forces after plenum - Financial Times

November 14, 2013 at 12:06am

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China’s leaders poised to unleash market forces after plenum

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November 12, 2013 4:10 pm

China’s leaders poised to unleash market forces after plenum

By Simon Rabinovitch in Shanghai and Tom Mitchell in Beijing

For months it was billed as a pivotal moment for the advancement of China’s economic reform agenda.

Such was the sense of anticipation that the so-called “third plenum” of the Chinese Communist party’s 18th Central Committee appeared to disappoint, in as much as it offered only faint clues about the specific reforms President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang intend to implement over the coming decade.

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But there was enough from the four-day gathering of more than 370 of China’s most powerful men and women, which ended on Tuesday, to suggest that the president and premier are preparing to unleash market forces as never before in the world’s second-largest economy.

Plenums have traditionally offered Chinese leaders a platform on which they can lay out a vision for their time in power, and have come to define the country’s economic strategies over the past three decades.

While not widely appreciated at the time, in December 1978 Deng Xiaoping consolidated his grip on power at the third plenum of the 11th Central Committee and launched China along a path from which there was no turning back.

This week’s plenum hinted that bland rhetoric could be a precursor to bold action, leading to far-reaching reforms. In particular, analysts pointed to the creation of a leadership group to spearhead reforms. The body will probably be headed by either Mr Xi or Mr Li and rank above ministries, allowing it to direct and co-ordinate policies.

While China’s growth record since the early 1980s is a testament to the success of earlier moves to shift towards a more market-driven economy, Mr Li has previously observed that the reform process has “entered deep waters”, an allusion to powerful vested interests that are opposed to far-reaching reforms.

“They are learning lessons from the past. If you don’t have a small group pushing reforms forward, then you have too many interests holding them up,” said Shen Jianguang, an economist with Mizuho Securities. “Objections have come from the establishment, from ministries, and now the small group will be able to overrule them.”

“The new leaders appear very determined to move forward but actually implementing changes will be much more difficult,” added Gary Liu of the China Europe International Business School. “Our system is very complex.”

In a sign of what some saw as the government’s resolve to press ahead with difficult reforms, the communiqué said markets would play a “decisive role” in allocating resources. Previously, markets had been described as playing a “basic role”.

For years, China has pledged reforms to give farmers more control of their land, cities more fiscal powers and private investors more space to operate in. But progress on all fronts has been limited.

They are learning lessons from the past. If you don’t have a small group pushing reforms, you have too many interests holding them up

- Shen Jianguang, Mizuho Securities economist

The communiqué noted the problems arising from China’s two-tier system of land ownership, under which farmers intent on migrating to cities – or even already settled there – may not sell their land back home to fund their new lives in urban areas. “Farmers should participate equally and enjoy the fruits of modernisation,” the statement said.

“The concept of equal land rights has been raised,” said Ma Guangyuan, a Beijing-based economist. “The distinction between urban and rural land will surely be abolished. That will be a significant reform.”

Much was also left unsaid in the communiqué. While attention has centred on Mr Xi’s agenda for financial reform, the plenum made no mention of banks, interest rates or the renminbi – three areas that are crucial to China’s financial plans.

“They need to increase the intensity of reform,” said Gao Minghua, director of a corporate governance centre at Beijing Normal University. “The promise to protect the private economy is new, but the communiqué doesn’t outline any specific measures.”

Other analysts argued that the lack of detail should not be seen as a disappointment. Communist party documents are often intentionally vague and leave implementation to government departments.

At another plenum in 1993, the party embraced the concept of a “socialist market economy”. Within a decade of that bland and seemingly contradictory pronouncement, China established stock markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen, joined the World Trade Organisation and overhauled its banking sector.

Under then President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji, the government also began a cull that reduced the number of state sector employees from about 70m in 1997 to 35m a decade later, while state-owned enterprises halved from 250,000 to fewer than 125,000 over the same period.

The downsizing of the state sector has since slowed, however, with state-owned companies being the prime beneficiaries of cheap credit and a Rmb4tn government stimulus that carried China’s economy through the depths of the global financial crisis.

Xi, the son of revolution

After a career spent largely in provincial leadership positions, Xi Jinping entered the party’s inner sanctum in 2007, when he joined the Communist party’s Politburo Standing Committee and became vice-president a year later. The appointments put him in pole position to succeed Hu Jintao, China’s then president and party general secretary.

Like most up-and-coming political figures, Mr Xi kept a low profile as vice-president, with the exception of a 2009 outburst in Mexico when he lashed out at “a few foreigners, with full bellies, who have nothing better to do than try to point fingers at our country”.

The son of a revolutionary leader, Mr Xi seemed at ease as he assumed power in a transition that began last year. Compared with Mr Hu, a wooden figure, Mr Xi speaks confidently in public and in March outlined his “dream” of national rejuvenation. It was the kind of rhetorical flourish usually associated with western politicians.

But while Mr Xi’s more fluid leadership style has been dramatically different from that of his predecessors, this week’s plenum resorted to the same formulaic language trotted out by the party on such occasions.

That disappointed some observers, especially after Yu Zhengsheng, who also sits on the Politburo Standing Committee, promised “broad and unprecedented” reforms that would “strongly push forward profound transformations in the economy, society and other spheres”.

They had hoped the plenum would announce concrete measures to rein in China’s state-owned enterprises, which dominate vast swaths of the economy, while also unveiling land and residency reforms to better the lot of the 260m migrant workers.

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Chinese-born Wong Tsu was The Boeing Company’s first engineer and helped put the com1pany on a sound footing.

Above: Bronze plaque of Wong Tsu, Courtesy Museum of Flight

Chinese-born Wong Tsu was The Boeing Company’s first engineer and helped put the com1pany on a sound footing.
ST ...and the Best
in the country, started in 1914 by Jerome Hunsaker, helped by graduate student Donald Douglas. Its first students also included Navy engineer George Conrad Westervelt, who in 1915 was in Seattle with William Boeing designing the first Boeing plane – the B & W.
Westervelt was stationed back east before it was finished and Boeing formed Pacific 

By EvE Dumovich

Afledgling Boeing Airplane Company got an industry footing in the early 1900s, due largely to the creative talents of its first engineer – a Chinese graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Wong Tsu, born in Beijing, in 1893, designed Boeing’s first mass-produced product – the Model C training seaplane. The airplane went on to become Boeing’s first financial success. He also introduced aviation innovations on two continents, and set the stage for Boeing China today. Wong was dedicated to advancing aeronautical science as both an inventor and as an ambassador.
Wong was only 12 years old when he was selected for the Manchu government’s Yang-Tai naval academy. Four years lat- er he was one of the first Chinese naval cadets sent to England, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in naval architecture and mechanical engineering from Armstrong Technical College. The Chinese government then sent him to the United States and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study the new sci- ence of aviation.
The MIT aeronautical engineering program was the firstn the country, started in 1914 by Jerome Hunsaker, helped by graduate student Donald Douglas. Its first students also included Navy engineer George Conrad Westervelt, who in 1915 was in Seattle with William Boeing designing the first Boeing plane – the B & W.

Westervelt was stationed back east before it was finished and Boeing formed Pacific Aero Products. He asked Hunsaker to recommend a skilled aviation engineer, and Hunsaker recom- mended Wong.
“[Wong] is a good man,” Hunsaker wrote. “Intends to spend two more years working in this country and wants a chance on aeroplane design and construction.”
Wong meets Westervelt
Wong graduated from MIT in June 1916 and had learned to fly at the Flying Boat School of the Curtiss Co., Buffalo, N.Y. He talked to Westervelt, now aboard the USS Wyoming in New York harbor, and then headed to Seattle to work on the Mod- el C, using data from the MIT wind tunnel and research from Gustav Eiffel.
Wong was able to test his theories in the air. According to a Seattle newspaper of the time, William Boeing allowed his em-ployees to fly the planes they were building.

“Among the most enthusiastic members in the newly estab-
lished aviation school now being conducted by the Pacific Aero Products Company at the Lake Union testing and trial grounds is a young Chinese, T. Wong ... who in addition to cherishing the ambition to become a proficient birdman, is a mechanical engi-
Boeing and Eddie Hubbard in front of the C-700 with a mail sack.
The story of the Model C
The Model C seaplane trainer launched Boeing as an airplane manu- facturer. It was the first military plane Boeing built and also was the first Boeing plane used to carry the mail. It led to development of the Model 40A mail and passenger biplane, and future success building commercial air transports.
By 1917, World War I was going strong and Josephus Daniels, secretary of the Navy, urged Boeing to hurry production of the Model C. In addition, the Navy needed proof that the Model C planes were as good as Boeing claimed they were.
If they passed tests at the Pensacola, Fla., Naval Base, the Boeing Airplane Company would be in business.
Because the biplanes could not fly that far, two Model Cs were taken apart, packed into crates and shipped by train – accompanied by Claude Berlin, Boeing factory superintendent, and pilot Herb Munter.
They reassembled the little seaplanes at the Navy base where despite 35-mph winds and 4-foot waves, the Model C proved better than anything the Navy fliers had seen. Three months later, Boeing Airplane Company seamstresses and carpenters were rushing to fill an order for 50 Model Cs for a total price of $575,000.
Boeing began final assembly of the airplane in a shipyard on the Duwamish River he had bought in 1910. By 1918, Model Cs were being manufactured in the timber structure known today as “The Red Barn,” later moved to the Museum of Flight in Seattle.
The Army bought two experimental EA models, essentially landplane versions of the C. The Navy ordered one to be modified with a single main pontoon and small auxiliary floats, known as the C-1F. Boeing built another Model C for himself as the C-700. On March 3, 1919, Boeing and Eddie Hubbard made the first international airmail delivery to the United States when they used the C-700 to carry 60 letters from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Seattle. All 56 Model C-type aircraft were built between 1916 and 1918.

neer and draughtsman,” the reporter wrote.
The Model C first flew on Nov. 5, 1916. It was the second air-
plane designed by the new company but was designated the C-4 because it was the fourth airplane owned by William Boeing. An improved Model C, with a bigger rudder, made its first flight April 9, 1917. Two weeks later, Boeing changed the name of Pa- cific Aero Products to Boeing Airplane Company.
On May 22, 1917, a month after President Woodrow Wil- son declared war on Germany, Boeing issued Wong a check for $50.77 for “payment in full for services rendered.” Wong went back to China where he started the first Chinese airplane factory in an old engineering works at Foo Chow.
Conrad Westervelt wrote: “When he [Wong] returns to Chi- na ... he will of course be one of the few men in that country flu- ent in aviation matters and I would look forward to the possibili- ties of some business in that country through him.”
By 1918, Wong was building the first Chinese floatplanes at a shipyard in Mah-Wei, including the Sea Eagle and the River Bird. During the next decade, Wong produced dozens of air- craft there, helping to establish China’s aircraft manufacturing business.
Building Sino-American relationships
Westervelt’s words proved prophetic.
In 1928, Westervelt went to Shanghai as a representative of the Curtiss Wright Corporation, working with the Chinese government to found the China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC), and inaugurate commercial air service in China. He selected Wong to be chief engineer in charge of CNAC servic- es and maintenance operations.
By 1934, Wong, now a Lieutenant Colonel, became the first general manager of the Central Hang Zhou Aircraft Company, building Curtiss Hawk pursuit planes and Douglas observa- tion planes.
In that capacity, Wong visited the Boeing Company in Seat- tle, the Douglas Aircraft Company in California, and the Boe- ing School of Aeronautics in Oakland, Calif. There is also a re- cord of him visiting the Stearman Aircraft Company in Wichita, Kan. Wellwood Beall, Boeing sales representative to China in 1935, recorded friendly meetings with Colonel Wong Tsu.
Innovations during wartime
In 1938, when the Japanese invaded the Chinese coastline, Wong’s factory moved inland – first to Wuhan and then to Kun- ming. In 1940, Wong established the Chinese Bureau of Aeronau- tical Research (later the Aviation Industry Development Center).
During World War II, it was hard to get materials to Chi- nese airplanes built inland, so Wong designed and built a unique troop-carrying glider made out of bamboo. By the war’s end in 1945, Wong headed the Aviation Research Academy in China. He spent his last decade teaching aviation engineering at the National Cheng-Kung University. He died on March 4, 1965 in Tainan, Taiwan.
His legacy lives on around the world. Wong’s accomplish- ments are documented in a display at The Museum of Flight in Seattle and at the Boeing Historical Archives.
His bronze portrait at the Museum of Flight was sponsored by The Boeing Company, the Boeing Asian American Professional Association, the Society of Chinese American Aerospace Engi- neers, the Chinese Institute of Engineers /USA-Seattle, the Cheng Kung University Alumni Association and the Beihang University Alumni Association. n 

How to Protect Your Privacy on Public Wi-Fi Networks - TIME

How to Protect Your Privacy on Public Wi-Fi Networks - TIME

November 12, 2013 at 12:06am

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 How to Protect Your Privacy on Public Wi-Fi Networks - TIME

http://techland.time.com/2013/11/08/how-to-protect-your-privacy-on-public-wi-fi-networks/

How to Protect Your Privacy on Public Wi-Fi Networks

Working unsecured on a public hotspot could get you into trouble.

By Techlicious / Elizabeth Harper @techliciousNov. 08, 2013

 Follow @techland

So you’re at your favorite coffee shop and have hopped on to the free WiFi with your tablet to check your social networks, read the latest news, and maybe take a quick peek at your bank balance while you’re enjoying your latte. We’re so used to having Internet access whenever and wherever we need it that we don’t often stop to consider whether logging into a public network is safe.
To find out just what the risks were, we consulted Con Mallon, a mobility expert with Symantec. “For lot of people, the first thing they do when they wander into a coffee shop or hotel lobby or the airport is to flip on their WiFi and try to find a free hotspot rather than use your own data plan or buying time from a hotspot,” Mallon says.
There are three major ways these free, open hotspots could get you into trouble, he explains.

The risks of free WiFi

Using public WiFi isn’t unlike having a conversation in a public place: Others can overhear you. If you don’t take precautions, information your devices send over a public WiFi network goes out in clear text — and anyone else on the network could easily take a look at what you’re doing with just a few simple software tools.
Someone spying could easily pick up your passwords or other private information. If you use the same password on multiple sites, that could be a big problem. Mallon reports that this is the biggest concern with public hotspots.
The next potential problem is what Mallon calls a honeypot. Thieves might set up their own WiFi hotspot with an unassuming name like “Public WiFi” to tempt you to connect so they can grab up any data you send. These are easy to set up without any kind of special equipment — it could be done just using a laptop or smartphone — so you could run into them anywhere. Mallon couldn’t say just how common these honeypots are, but news reports about honeypots pop up once or twice a year.
Finally, using public WiFi puts you at risk for session hijacking, in which a hacker who’s monitoring your WiFi traffic attempts to take over an open session you have with an online service (like a social media site or an email client) by stealing the browser cookies the service uses to recognize who you are. Once hackers have that cookie, they can pretend to be you on these sites or even find your login and password information stored inside the cookie.

How to stay safe on public WiFi

Before you connect, be sure you know whose network you’re connecting to so you don’t fall prey to WiFi honeypots. If you’re not sure what the public network at a business is called, ask an employee before connecting.
Check to make sure your computer or smartphone is not set up to automatically connect to unknown WiFi networks — or set it to ask you before connecting — so you’re sure you know what you’re connecting to when you connect.
Make sure to connect to websites via HTTPS, which encrypts anything you send and receive from the website. While a VPN service encrypts everything you send, HTTPS ensures that communication to and from a particular website is secure. To verify if you’re connected via HTTPS, look at the address bar of your browser window; you should see “HTTPS” at the beginning of the web address (or, on some web browsers, a lock icon).
To encrypt all of the data you send, use a VPN service. Anyone trying to steal your data will see only encrypted data that they can’t get into. There are many services that can do this, including Witopia.net,StrongVPN.com and Norton’s Hotspot Privacy. VPN services charge a fee for their use, with pay packages ranging from day passes to year-round protection.
Whenever you can, use two-factor authentication, which requires both a password and a secondary code that changes regularly, for websites. This makes it very difficult for hackers to get at your accounts because even if they can get your password, they won’t have the secondary code. Though not all services support it, many popular sites offer this level of security including Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Apple andMicrosoft.
Make sure your computer isn’t configured to share access to files. When you’re at home, it may be convenient to keep things in a folder you share with other members of the household, but that’s less safe when you’re connecting to public WiFi.
Disable sharing in:

• Windows 8: Go to Control Panel > Network and Internet > View network status and Tasks > Change advanced sharing settings > Turn off file and printer sharing > Save changes.

• Windows 7: Go to Control Panel > Network and Sharing Center > Change advanced sharing settings > Home or Work > Turn off file and printer sharing > Save changes.

• Mac OS X: Go to System Preferences > Sharing and be sure that File Sharing doesn’t have a check mark by it.

Good luck, and safe browsing!
This article was written by Elizabeth Harper and originally appeared on Techlicious
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