I was "out of commission" for the past couple of days--couldn't read, couldn't work on computer, not even talking on the phone, as instructed by my Lasik eye doctor. This was my second Lasik surgery. I did my original one more than 1 year ago, to correct my nearsightedess. All went fine except it didn't really cure my nearsightedness 100%. They said it's because I was one of those high prescription patients and such result is normal. What I found is this insufficient curing of my myopia actually cured my presbyopia perfectly--I can read and work on computer without moving my head away from the object or wearing reading glasses. Long story short, at the end, I decided to have a "mono-vision" surgery again, one that will leave my right eye untouched, and operate only on my left eye so it can be truly 20/20 for distance vision. That's what I did yesterday.
It's second time around for me, so nothing is really new or scary, except while I was waiting outside of the operation room, I found they have a TV screen hanging above the surgery bed that showed the close-up of the whole surgery process that I could see from where I sat, so I got a free tour of what happened exactly to the patient before me: I saw how the eye's cornea flap got flipped over and tugged away, then the laser gun moved in, "da da da", applying the cutting, then the flap got moved back and "pasted" with a small brush... The whole process took less than 5 minutes. When I went in, the same process happened to me as I could tell, and I smelled the burn when the laser gun blasted on my cornea.
One thing they have you do before the surgery, is to sign a long document explaining that Lasik is not the only way to correct your eyesight and like any operation, it carries a certain risk of failure and you are aware of that, etc... This was probably the most scary part of the operation.
We all treasure our physical well being greatly, as I was signing the paper, I thought. We all want our body to be functioning 100%, if possible, not to mention not wanting any major injuries or the ultimate death to come to us. Yet we all know and learn from the bible and other teachings that this body is only temporary thing, we should not cling on to it too much... Yet we seem to like to cling on to it quite much.. How do we explain it?
One reason I guess is we do get to enjoy certain pleasures, not only physically, but emotionally and spiritually, through this body, that instinctively teaches us that in order to keep these pleasures, or to have them again, we need to keep this body we have. Or maybe it's just because we don't know there is any other way (medium) that we can have these pleasures. The religiously correct answer to this, then, is one day we won't need this body baggage or any medium to enjoy the eternal joy with the Lord any more.
Back on earth and back to now. We'll have our bi-weekly men's group gathering at my home again this Saturday morning. Come on over if you can. Instead of 9 AM, I'd like to move it a notch early, say 8:30 AM, this way we can enjoy cooler air in the morning and finish it earlier (say 10:30) so we all can go home and go about doing our weekend business if need to.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Saturday, August 4, 2007
shy particles
Here is something from an interesting article I just read and would like to share with you:
You probably all know something about quantum physics, the one that says, basically, when in sub-atomic world, the act of observing affects the behavior of the observed. Therefore one can only describe the where-about of a sub-atomic particle in terms of probability, no longer a definitude.
This is interesting enough, and has been proven by many experiments, but here is another even interesting thing scientists found lately with other experiments:
In these experiments they try to observe particles of light (photons) flying toward a screen, one at a time. The screen has two slits. If each photon goes through one slit, they form two bright spots on Venetian blinds beyond the screen. If each photon somehow goes through both slits, however, they form black-and-white stripes when they land on the blinds. Physicists have long known that if a device observes the slits, no zebra pattern forms; it's as if quantum phenomena are too shy to display their magic--one particle going through two slit--when watched.
Now, scientists put detectors on the far side of the blinds. If the blinds are open and the detectors peek at the slits, photons fly through only one slit and no zebra stripes form. If the blinds are closed so the detectors cannot see the slits, photons fly through both and form the stripes. Here's the twist: if the blinds open only after photons have passed the slits but before they reach the blinds, the stripes fail to form even though the photons have seemingly done what they must to form stripes--namely, fly through two slits, as they always do when unobserved. The act of observing alters what the photons did earlier, somehow changing things so they passed through one slit and not two.
There seem to be "many histories" a photon could have, then, such as passing through one slit or two. Or "something that happens now is affected by something that happens in the future", says physicist Jeff Tollaksen of George Mason University. "It suggests that the universe has a destiny--a destiny that is out there and coming back to us from the future".
Amazing, isn't it? Does this also ring a bell, or bring back that image of "a supertrain, shuttling between the past, the present, and the future, all at the same time, whenever we do the communion together," as said in the little book "The Meal Jesus Gave Us" by N. T. Wright that we read a while back ago, Ed, Dave, and Ken?
Back to the present, or the pretty near future, this coming Saturday, the 1st week of the month, date for our men's group meeting. Feel free to come over and have quality fellowship time together 9 AM at my home, like we did last time, if you can. Let me know if you are coming, so I can have my fancy, programmable coffee maker brew 10, 9, 8, 7..., or just one cup of coffee for you and myself.
You probably all know something about quantum physics, the one that says, basically, when in sub-atomic world, the act of observing affects the behavior of the observed. Therefore one can only describe the where-about of a sub-atomic particle in terms of probability, no longer a definitude.
This is interesting enough, and has been proven by many experiments, but here is another even interesting thing scientists found lately with other experiments:
In these experiments they try to observe particles of light (photons) flying toward a screen, one at a time. The screen has two slits. If each photon goes through one slit, they form two bright spots on Venetian blinds beyond the screen. If each photon somehow goes through both slits, however, they form black-and-white stripes when they land on the blinds. Physicists have long known that if a device observes the slits, no zebra pattern forms; it's as if quantum phenomena are too shy to display their magic--one particle going through two slit--when watched.
Now, scientists put detectors on the far side of the blinds. If the blinds are open and the detectors peek at the slits, photons fly through only one slit and no zebra stripes form. If the blinds are closed so the detectors cannot see the slits, photons fly through both and form the stripes. Here's the twist: if the blinds open only after photons have passed the slits but before they reach the blinds, the stripes fail to form even though the photons have seemingly done what they must to form stripes--namely, fly through two slits, as they always do when unobserved. The act of observing alters what the photons did earlier, somehow changing things so they passed through one slit and not two.
There seem to be "many histories" a photon could have, then, such as passing through one slit or two. Or "something that happens now is affected by something that happens in the future", says physicist Jeff Tollaksen of George Mason University. "It suggests that the universe has a destiny--a destiny that is out there and coming back to us from the future".
Amazing, isn't it? Does this also ring a bell, or bring back that image of "a supertrain, shuttling between the past, the present, and the future, all at the same time, whenever we do the communion together," as said in the little book "The Meal Jesus Gave Us" by N. T. Wright that we read a while back ago, Ed, Dave, and Ken?
Back to the present, or the pretty near future, this coming Saturday, the 1st week of the month, date for our men's group meeting. Feel free to come over and have quality fellowship time together 9 AM at my home, like we did last time, if you can. Let me know if you are coming, so I can have my fancy, programmable coffee maker brew 10, 9, 8, 7..., or just one cup of coffee for you and myself.
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