Bedtime stories: Stories of Glorified Murder and Subservient Women?

One of my favorites is a Romanian fairy tale -- Minte Creata, Busuioc si Sucna Murga -- by Ion Pop-Reteganul. It is the story of three brothers famous in their neighborhood for their brave deeds. The names of the heroes are: "Minte Creata" (Curly Brain), "Busuioc" (Basil) and "Sucna Murga" (Morning dress -- sucna is a thick, straight woolen dress or skirt worn by women when doing work around the house). Their mother is a widow and they have no father to look after her/them. The naming scheme suggests the author has a hidden sense of humor -- like in "Princess Bride".

Each day the brothers have the same routine. The first brother returns home in the evening, eats and sleeps all night before leaving home again. The second returns at midnight, eats and sleeps until morning, while the youngest returns at sunrise, eats and sleeps a bit. Then they all leave home for more brave deeds. Sucna Murga is aware of everything that goes on because he is magical -- that's likely why he functions on so little sleep. Their bedtime habits are consistent with when they were born. Minte Creata was born in the evening, Busuioc at midnight and Sucna Murga just as the sun was rising. Neither seem to help their mother or do farm work or if they do, it is not mentioned. However, it says they are famous world-wide for their bravery -- perhaps like me and David in more than one regard.

When the emperor, who appears to be more like a village chief, wants to find a suitable husband for his only daughter, he sends word and material to their mother to sew a new white shirt and some underpants -- izmene. The underpants and shirt have to be ready by morning or they will all be beheaded. Then one of her sons has to dress in those clothes and retrieve the light of the sun and the key from heaven from the zmei -- a zmeu is a kind of powerful, rich, but ugly human with some superpowers. If they succeed, they will win the hand of the princess. Otherwise, the whole family will be beheaded. The first two brothers acknowledge they would be unable to do this. They say that if they are to die, they would rather die at home. They take a fatalist approach or one could say they are being lazy. They don't even want to try. Instead, they acknowledge that every person  dies at some point, and it may as well be now as later. Their mother, however, keeps sewing the underpants and the shirt after quickly cooking for them.  She believes in them and wants them to survive and succeed. She, however, no longer waits on them at the table and makes them wait on themselves as she is busy sewing for their lives and hers.

The youngest agrees to go on the emperor's quest, but, first, he calls his brothers to help. The oldest brother does not show up. He is not interested in discussing the matter -- even though all their lives are in danger, while the middle brother agrees to come with the condition that he will not be asked to do anything that is hard. This is the condition that David often places when he goes somewhere with us -- to not be asked to do anything, and if he really has to do something, it should be easy. So, it's good to see that even heroes in fairy tales have this sort of attitude. It makes me think more highly of David.

Sucna Murga promises he is only taking his brother, Busuioc, for company, and will not ask him to do anything that is difficult. As they travel, they first get to a magical valley that makes them sleep and never wake up. Sucna Murga drags Busuioc along and they manage not to fall asleep. Next, they reach a second magical valley where they are suddenly overburdened by love for the ones they left home and feel the urgent need to return. Sucna Murga barely gets Busuioc out of these valleys. Lastly, they get to a third valley with very beautiful flowers who tempt them to steal one. Sucna Murga knows not to take the flowers, but Busuioc picks a flower and hides it in his clothes. The whole valley then rings loudly -- like an alarm in the store. Sucna Murga first asks his brother to return the flower and when he refuses, he searches his brother until he finds the flower and returns it. The noise then stops and they travel further.

Eventually, they get to the domain of the zmei. Sucna Murga tells Busuioc he is keeping his word of not making him do anything hard. So, instead of taking him along now, he has him wait by the bridge between the domains for his return. The zmei are three brothers just like them, and Sucna Murga kills them one by one, and takes their horses and carts and leaves them with Busuioc. The last one is the strongest -- as strong as him -- and has the key of heaven and the light of the sun in his cart. There he manages to kill the zmeu with the help of ravens, which one imagines are the lawyers of modern time. The zmeu tries bribing them with the body of Sucna Murga, but Sucna Murga offers three bodies -- of the three zmei -- and the ravens are greedy. They do not appreciate quality meat -- Sucna Murga is younger and would be sweeter to eat. They want to win a lot. So, they help Sucna Murga and he keeps his word and shows them where all three bodies are.

Later he takes the horses and cart of the last zmeu to his brother and goes back to see how their wives plan revenge, which he manages to defeat because he hears their exact plans. The first one turns herself into a poisoned, hot well, which he cuts with his sword and it turns into blood. The second one into a beautiful rug, which he cuts in two and she bleeds to death. Each time Busuioc is upset and asks Sucna Murga how he could ruin the well and then such a beautiful rung, which he wanted to take home. The last one tries to swallow them, but he throws a heated mace into her mouth. It sticks to her mouth as her flesh melts and she lights on fire parts of the nearby forest as she dies. Then Sucna Murga and Busuioc return home. Sucna Murga is acclaimed for his bravery and marries the daughter of the emperor, and reigns justly for many years. Of course, the princess had no say in who she married as long as he managed to retrieve the key from heaven for her while wearing the underpants and white shirt. It just had to be somebody brave enough to rule the country for her. They now had servants to cook, make more white underpants and wait on the table. So, Sucna Murga would not need to take his mother along to worry over such chores.

In most Romanian stories, Fat Frumos (prince charming) kills the zmeu, a kind of rich human from 'the other world', and takes some of his possessions ... and lives happily ever after. He sometimes has brothers who try to take credit for his work, but, eventually, outwits them, too. In some stories he forgives them, and in some they die for having the presumption to take the credit, and for being silly. Sometimes they throw arrows straight up, and not understanding gravity, somehow the arrow falls back down and splits their head in two -- this is because they were guilty or so the story says -- while the arrow of Fat Frumos/Prince Charming/Praslea falls neatly near him. Oh, and it's always the youngest child who is the bravest and best. I am the oldest, and David is the oldest, too -- because we each have different parents -- David being my cousin. And then my younger brother, James, is only three. He can't outsmart any of us yet. Although, he tries to lead and thinks he is in charge more often than not.

This story ends in a slightly different way from others. One could say the ending is the best part in some ways. The author himself says he went to Sucna Murga's wedding. There he feasted on amazing food and took home a fried duck leg. On the way home he started eating the leg as it was very sweet and he was hungry, but then he met a learned man/scientist who was so very hungry/fript de foame (fried of hunger) that he begged for the duck leg so fervently that it was thrown at him. However, as he had his hands in his pockets, it hit him in the leg. Since then the man walks with a limp, which if we doubt the story, we can still observe today when we look at the particular scientist. Not much has changed in the way funding is awarded today -- we can still look for the limping learned men. We note that Ion Pop-Reteganul was born in the 1850s and died in the beginning of the 20th century.

Do children stories across the globe glorify murder? and subservient women? are they tales of prejudice, discrimination and cruelty that transcend centuries and cultures? Gretel cooks and keeps house for Hansel and the witch. Later Hansel and Gretel kill the witch and steal her possessions and ... live happily ever after. All of these are justified as a form of self-defense. The deeds are needed for survival. But was the witch really trying to eat them? or was she simply an old woman in social isolation who did not have family or friends to help her? She is not alive to tell her side of the story. We only have the version of her murders.

Disobedience is often punished by life-loss. Max and Moritz are baked by the baker, but survive because they are coated in dough and they chew their way through and run away. However, they are next caught and put through the mill by a farmer for making holes in his sacks of grain. The mill grinds them to pieces, and the miller feeds them to his geese. Nobody is sorry for the loss of life because they were disobedient, and did not learn to be kind or useful in a society that punishes cruelly and irrevocably.

The duck-leg through which Ion Pop-Reteganul describes funding for learned men certainly transcends centuries and cultures.

So is death life's ultimate lesson? COVID-19 is a disease that threatens to kill a small fraction of us -- mostly those with preexisting conditions -- and people are terribly afraid. Our leaders are greedy. They want to be in charge and have dictatorial powers. In order to gain absolute power they pretended to dismiss COVID-19 -- at first -- but manage to stay in power independent of lives lost and of mistakes made. They are those in charge of the ravens from the stories. They want to gain as much as possible and do not care of the consequences. Will we end up murdering each other for their entertainment? so far the reaction to the "Black Lives Matter" movement has claimed a relatively small number of lives, but will it be more? will we hate each other more and more until war erupts? will some of us be turned into zmei and others into prince charmings by the press? After all the Prince of England married an actress to help the Royal Family manage the press. Is the press leading us from one dramatic abyss to another just so that there is more to write about? doesn't the cost matter? in the civilized world that survives by taking from all the others, will it get to the point where there is not enough food for survival?

The Second Wave

In February, I estimated the mortality rate of Covid-19 at 0.2%. So far, this limit seems to hold. There are no countries or large areas where the virus has proven more deadly.

Sure, there’s New York where 0.17% of people have died and New Jersey with 0.18%. If we look closely, county by county and suburb by suburb, we have Bronx with 0.34%.  However, Bronx has a high obesity rate, and more uninsured and poor black people who appear to be more susceptible to COVID-19. These factors naturally contribute to a higher COVID-19 mortality. Overall, the 0.2% estimate seems to hold, as a rough, but reliable guideline.

This makes COVID-19 about twice as deadly as the common flu. It has interesting complications involving the brain, heart, lungs and other organs. This is not unheard of for viruses — just think of Adenovirus 36 that is strongly linked to obesity. Colds, themselves, are caused by a wide variety of viruses including coronaviruses. So, COVID-19, welcome to the clan!

In this article, I want to look at the future. What will happen in the next few months, when fall brings lower temperatures, more rain and more … colds. COVID-19 is now firmly established as an endemic virus across the globe. No country has been spared. OK, perhaps North Korea, but it is hard to believe the North Koreans! From New York to South Sudan, we all face the same virus and, like with all viruses, modern medicine can do remarkably little to help. Thus, we should not expect to see across Africa or Brazil vastly higher mortality rates than we have seen across NY or London. In fact, India has reported a lower mortality rate in Mumbai's slums than Western Europe has because they have a younger population and because they have likely tested more.

In hindsight, the dominant feature of the first wave was rapid onset with a fast exponential growth in cases and deaths. This was due to the novelty of the virus. Everyone was susceptible and the R-factor (the number of people the average patient passes the virus to before getting cured) was high.

This R-factor depends on various things such as
— immunity — if half of the population is immune, R will halve.
— weather. Colds don’t like summer.
— social distancing

— school, work, public transport use.

Now, through various measure and through the grace of God’s summer, we the people, have brought R well below 1. This led to an exponential decay in the number of cases, but the virus has not disappeared. It may never go away. At least not in the near future.

In the second wave, the R-factor will be close to 1. It will inch slowly above 1, as cold weather makes us more susceptible to colds and people naturally share viruses more efficiently in the fall because they spend more time inside in the proximity of other people.

Thus, we will see an increase in cases, but it will be much slower than in the first wave. It will be like Iran now. The virus is there. Some people are dying, but the numbers do not change by a factor of 10 a week.

If immunity is long lasting, some places, where almost the entire population was infected will not see a serious second wave, e.g., India's slums, NYC and NJ if the death rate is what I have predicted.

If immunity doesn’t last long, such places will see a second wave of milder illness. The virus will infect adults for the 2nd time — with far milder symptoms due to some degree of immunity from the first infection. It will also infect children who were breastfed or not yet born during the first wave. Thus, like most other colds, it will do the rounds in day care centers, again, mostly with mild symptoms.

In countries where the quarantine stopped the virus successfully this summer, the second wave will be more substantial. For people who first meet the virus during the winter, we should expect more pneumonia and a higher mortality compared to those first infected in summer. This happens with all colds.

In such places, like Norway, Denmark, Austria, and perhaps parts of Germany and Eastern Europe, where most people appear to have avoided the virus in summer, we will see a lot of death and pneumonia in the fall. Sure, still of the order 0.2%, so not the end of the world. The difference between summer and winter mortality could be substantial.

How about Sweden? Sweden is interesting. Sweden’s first wave mortality was about 0.05% — about a quarter of my 0.2% rough limit. I wonder if they can get away with less. This may be due to the general good health of the Swedish people, their good discipline, good health care and low incidence of obesity. Maybe, in Sweden, this virus only kills 0.1% or, maybe, even less. It will be very interesting to see if Sweden gets and 2nd wave and how it will look like.

Iran, if we believe their numbers, has only lost 10% of the 0.2% I expect. But I am not sure I believe their numbers. I think they may be further along. We’ll see when it stops. Iran is in a stationary state, with R hovering above 1 when it rains or too many people turn on the AC and blow 1 otherwise.

A look in the Southern hemisphere — Chile has nearly reached 0.05% dead while New Zealand and Australia have very low numbers. Argentina is much lower than Chile but still on the growing exponential. Slow growing exponential. So, the Southern hemisphere doesn’t look too bad. We’ll be lucky if we’ll have it so easy in the north.

My 2 cents on politics and policy advice:

Allowing the virus to go though the population during summer will result in some degree of herd immunity. Usually, summer colds are vastly easier than winter colds — less likely to result in complications, pneumonia, etc. Thus, letting the virus go through the population now will, in the long term, save lives. Sweden has dome this experiment and is probably going to be proven right.

Austria, Denmark and Norway will probably see more deaths in the fall and perhaps Eastern Europe, Germany, too if the lockdown is the reason the numbers are low. These countries will be in a particularly bad position as they would have paid the economic cost of the lock downs — children lost school, everyone lost money, and, may have more COVID-19 deaths than if they had done nothing at all.

Italy, Spain, US, the UK and Sweden seem to be managing to pretend to be taking measures against Covid-19, but their mortality rate seems to be the same as if they had done nothing at all. Doing nothing at all to prevent the virus spreading during summer seems to be the best strategy.

I am surprised by New Zealand and Australia — they are in the middle of winter and they seem to have few Covid-19. Although, Australia is seeing an increase in cases at the moment. I didn’t believe their containment strategy would work. We’ll see if the low numbers will lasts until the end of winter.

Across the world, inflation, political instability and war appear unavoidable now.  I worry about my children, and my nephews and about their future. Will David and Edward go to war instead of college? If so, will David fight against or with his siblings in this new twisted world?

General Relativity in Everyday Life

My first seminar at ICCUB is live on youtube!

A note on the questions: I favored field binaries, i.e., binaries that form in the galaxy, over a dense environment/dynamic evolution scenario. Most stars form in binaries because of the way the disc fragments. Then when the stars explode, some remnants stay in binaries. Thus, the field binaries go through a channel that is somewhat better understood -- common envelope, supernova collapse that does not kick the black hole much. However, both scenarios are equally possible at this stage. Neither is ruled out by LIGO data.

The field binaries provenience would be more likely only IF the black holes are born without spin, which they could be due to inefficient angular momentum coupling, but we don't know that this is the case. Naively, one would expect BHs (and NSs) to acquire high spin during the collapse process from a larger to a much smaller object -- it's just that neither BHs nor the observed young neutron stars seem to have much spin. So, either they are born with high spin and there is some mechanism that spins them down like r-modes for neutron stars and super-radiance for black holes as Roberto pointed out during my seminar OR they are born without spin. A proof for super-radiance would be a scenario like Roberto mentioned, where there is high spin below a certain mass, when the super-radiance process is active, and no spin above that mass or the other way around. It would be more interesting to have them born spinning and see the spin-down mechanism at work -- but we have not seen such proof yet. For neutron stars, the most obvious proof would be what LIGO calls continuous waves from, e.g., unstable r-modes in newborn neutron stars, which have a specific gravitational wave frequency at 4/3 x frequency of the star vs. the usual 2 x frequency of the star for mountains, and would hopefully be close enough to identify the source and its environment.

IF they are born with spin, then the globular cluster/dynamic scenario is more likely. Then the BHs are likely to be both spinning and precessing, but the precession would not be visible for the equal mass scenario.

What would be proof that BHs can be born with spin?
Black holes with spin in an equal mass binary would be proof that they are born with spin and that there is some instability that only works in some cases. I don't see that they would have to be large. Perhaps if they are small and we know they are black holes, they are more likely to be born this way and not be the result of a merger.

How to get into highschool in Romania: speak a third language or cheat?

David took his end-of-middle school exam this summer. He passed and will start ninth grade at the best highschool in Lugoj in the German-speaking section, which focuses on natural sciences. Since his grades were far from perfect, he is too embarrassed to write about it himself. I don't suffer from such a huge ego yet. So, I will write my opinion of the process. I will not focus on David since he passed and got into the highschool he wanted and there is not more to say beyond that. I am, however,  shocked because of the reported nation-wide results -- which imply that the only way to go to a good highschool is to speak German, be some other form of minority or cheat. I am fluent in German, and I am good at studying. So, I don't worry about my future in this country or in any other country unless there is another war, but I think it's unfair that almost every child should be doomed to go to schools without many good teachers or be forced to cheat in a so-called still democratic society.

If one looks at Bucharest: Colegiul "Sfantul Sava" -- Matematica-Informatica -- last entrance grade 9.98. Given that grading is relatively subjective, admitting only children with perfect grades is wrong because you don't get diversity, you don't get the best students, you only get the kids whose parents found a way in. But, ok, you'd think Bucharest as the capital with the largest population could have some excuse. 

How about other cities? Colegiul National 'Vasile Alecsandri' -- Galati -- Matematica Informatica -- last entrance grade 9.83. My grandpa is a proud graduate 'Vasile Alecsandri' from 1968. He got in because he was talented, and ended up first in Romania when he took the medical school entrance exam at the end of highschool. Yet, with his grades, he would not have gotten in had he been born 50some years later. In Timisoara, Colegiul National Loga has the last entrance grade of 9.75 for Matematica-Informatica and 9.51 for Natural Sciences. In the Grigore Moisil Highshool the last kid who entered had a grade of 9.49. My mom is a graduate of Grigore Moisil and would not have gotten in today. She has a Cornell PhD and still is one of the most talented women in our country.

Lugoj is a pocket of sanity among thieves. The last GPA for Matematica Informatica is 7.51, which is reasonable. Interestingly enough, the Natural Sciences section -- taught in Romanian -- has a last entrance grade of 7.80 and the last student who got into Umanist section has 7.83. The section where David is had the last entrance grade of 5.74. It is taught in German and has a focus on Natural Sciences. The German section in Colegiul National Banatean has a last entrance grade of 5.92, while Lenau is off charts with a last entrance grade of 9.40 for 'Matematica-Informatica' and 9.17 for Natural Sciences. So, are David's colleagues stupid? are they the dumbest of the dumb? No! They are the Golden Kinder of Lugoj. This is what the teachers call them. Why the nickname? They are 18 of them and they won the Olympiads every year in most subjects. I know because I study in German, too and I am one of the top three in my class. We also won the city's Math Olympiad this past year + a bunch of other contests and olympiads. I was on second place even though I was sick and had high fever that day. OK, the one who got the 5.74 did not win any contests in math or science, but I think he did in sports.

Mom tells me the entrance grade at Grigore Moisil in Timisoara in her time was somewhere above 7. Then half of the seats were known to be sold. Today almost all seats must be sold-off since it cannot be possible for so many children to have perfect or close to perfect grades. So, Bucharest, Craiova, Constanta, Galati, Buzau, Cluj, Timisoara, Iasi did you have to sell the future of all your children? Why wasn't half enough?

Our politicians congratulated the children for doing so well on the exam. But, I wonder, dear leaders, how many of you would score past 7 on this middle school graduation exam? I wager the life of my favorite chicken -- Petunia -- that most of you would fail this exam and certainly none would score over 9.98 to enter the highschool in Bucharest. Should schools be congratulated for selling their children's future and, literally, closing cities to education? Perhaps... in a world where presidents like Donald Trump brag about Acing cognitive tests, which should be given in Old people's home not in the White House, this is the 'new' normal. For me, being Romanian and American, it destroys all hope of normal. But then the US president openly mentioned he could shoot somebody in plain view of thousands and still win, and why should the politicians of Romania be different when corruption here has been a trademark since the end of the last war. Our school system, however, had been one of the best in Eastern Europe. Why ruin it and brag and humiliate what's left of it?

Our leaders mock the children and the schools by congratulating them for theft at a time when most have such fragile egos. And children forget these leaders are inferior beings. OK, they are these really annoying beings in their early teens who care more about appearances than about anything else, but do they deserve to be hurt so? to have their future trashed? Even David who passed and got in exactly where he wanted feels hurt that he did not do better. He spends almost all his time shooting toy pistols (they cost 7 lei, and Andy/dad keeps breaking them because they are both stubborn; grandma says he should be left alone to use them until he gets bored because he keeps buying more and they cost money and resources) or on his phone. He scored  close 7 on the exam -- more than most politicians would score -- I am sure. Of course, he could have easily obtained a higher grade had he studied more. But is three a point to studying? in the world we live in? The scums of the Earth seem in charge everywhere.... how can they deal with a pandemic? with climate change? while they have absolute power?