The Data is Clear, but Why?, Part 1
The Milky Way is not stationary. It’s hurtling through the Universe, ablaze.
Throughout the pandemic, I’ve tried to not just decipher the data as it comes in and provide the answer to What? as in “What just happened there?”, but to answer the question Why, as in ,”Why did the SARS-2 virus behave that way?” Understanding the Why? is all-powerful because if you truly understand the Why?, you have the power to predict what will happen before it does, and thereby avoid all the pain and suffering that would accompany it, were it allowed to continue on its present track.
Understanding the Why? is on a whole different level than merely understanding the What? (and understanding the What? is not always that easy either- just look at the track record of the CDC, WHO, the TV doctors, Bill Gates, Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, let alone all of the docs-armchair and actual- out there getting everything wrong).. Understanding the Why? requires the thinker to be in complete command of every applicable characteristic of the object at hand, in this case a virus, and to truly understand the Premises (from where it starts, the assumptions upon which your reasoning is based), and the Laws and Principles governing its action (where it is going from there).
Before we get lost in the weeds trying to take into consideration the multitude of influences dictating a virus’s behavior in infecting a human being, set against the defenses mounted by that human being in combating the invasion, lets take some simpler examples of forces acting on an object and try to predict what will happen if we encounter similar circumstances in the future. Then we can predict the outcome of a more complex problem.
I. shows a simple block resting on a surface and the forces acting on it. Gravity is pushing down on it, the table is pushing up on it and there is friction between the block and the table. Since the block is not accelerating up or down, g=N. All of these things are vectors, by the way. A vector is a magnitude and direction associated with a point in space.
II. shows the surface raised at one end to an angle, theta. As it gets raised, the forces on the block change. There is now a component of g that is straight into the surface (this one still equaling N) and one in the direction of movement, paralell to the surface. That component of g must equal the frictional force since the block has not begun to slide.
III. At some angle theta, the component of g in the direction of the surface exceeds the friction between the block and the table. This is when the block will start to slide down the surface in the same way as plates and glasses would start to slide if you picked up the end of your dining room table higher and higher. They would start sliding at different times depending on the angle raised, their weights and the coefficients of static friction between the materials the plates and glasses are made of and the table. If you raised the table greater than 90 degrees everything would be in free fall.
IV. But lets go back to the time (the angles) when things start sliding off. Suppose one of the glasses falls over and starts rolling. How does that change things?
VI. What if glasses of equal mass but different radius topple over and start rolling. Which will roll off the table faster or will they roll off at equal speed?
VII. what about a heavy vase? It’s bigger around and it’s heavier. Does this matter?
That is about the simplest set of questions there is from the world of physics. If you can master the principles involved, you can move on to the next set of questions, such as, when shooting a projectile of mass m, out of a cannon at speed S with the cannon barrel set at angle theta, where will the projectile land?
VII. There is wind, gravity, drag force from air resistance which depends on the temperature and humidity of the air, and, if that wasn’t complicated enough, the projectile is spinning. How does that change where it will land?
VIII. The only way you can solve this problem is by reasoning from first principles. I tackle every problem I encounter this way, be it medical, surgical, physical, chemical, etc.; every one. This drawing depicts an application of the cannon problem. When the rocketstage burns through its fuel and is released, the question of exactly where it will land in the ocean relates to your chance of recovering it. The rocket stage is the cannon projectile. It’s moving at a velocity v when released at an angle tangent to the arc depicting the rocket’s motion there’s wind, humid air and gravity acting on it. There’s really no difference in the two problems except that the stage tumbles through the air while it’s spinning. It’s precessing too, like a top when it slows down. All of that has to be taken into consideration if you want to recover the enormous object before it sinks. If you think the spinning doesn’t matter or is negligable, tell it to a baseball batter. Believe me, it’s not negligable. That thing is curving all over the sky as it’s coming down.
OK, enough already, with the different forces and effects governing its flight!
SPLASH!
With the Space X barge laying in wait a few meters away, crane attached, it’s fairly easy to recover the stage for future use, saving tens of millions of dollars per launch.
All you need was freshman physics.
Why didn’t NASA think of this? They probably did- it’s kind of obvious- but they were spending someone else’s money (yours) and didn’t care.
IX. Things get very complicated when you consider that the sun is revolving around the center of mass of the Milky Way at thousands of miles and hour. This means that our motion through space (and that of Mars) is not a simple ellipse but rather a corkscrew kind of path. Mars’s is similar but the corkscrew is bigger around and it moves slower because it’s further from the sun (in accordance with the law of conservation of angular momentum). And, oh, I forgot.. The Milky Way is not stationary. It’s hurtling through the Universe, ablaze. Now, put everything together to figure out the direction a rocket would have to go in, from the surface of the Earth at Cape Canaveral, Florida, to hit Mars in 2 1/2 years from the day it launched.
I think this example shows how quickly the problem esculates into one of great complexity. Medical problems are more complex than problems in physics but much easier to understand because we simplify them. Ultimately, Physics governs everything that happens in medicine, of course. Just think of the quantum mechanics involved in the electron clouds surrounding the spike protein and the electron clouds surrounding the proteins that make up the ACE-2 receptors. The “lock and key” mechanism we use to explain the spike-receptor interaction or the antigen-antibody interactions are gross oversimplifications. But you have to do this in medicine. To work on the actual problem of electron cloud interaction would be a waste of time because it is so far beyond the scope of a medical school curriculum. For starters, no one would be able to understand the mathematics. The approach to the real and oversimplified problems must remain the same, however. One must reason from first principles to avoid drawing incorrect conclusions.