Drowning in Advertisement

If you take a ride in the country in Europe, to an American it seems like something is missing. Finally you realize what it is. There are no billboards to spoil the scenery. Nowhere except in America are people inundated with propaganda night and day. What is worse, because we've become so used to being overwhelmed with the stuff, Madison Avenue and others keeps thinking up more ways to get our attention to buy their products.

Take the Sunday newspaper, for example. My paper delivery person struggles under the heavy load of thick bundles of newsprint. After I take out all the ads, about five thin sheets are left and even those have advertisements on them. Every day, when I go to my mailbox, I pull out tons of junk mail, most of which goes directly into the recycling bin. Out of every hour of television being broadcast, twenty minutes is devoted to advertising. And even when no commercials are on, shows like the morning network news are mostly devoted to demonstrating various products or are come-ons for new movies or TV shows. Even theaters that show movies now put on ads before the feature. Video tapes and DVDs contain advertisements.

And the Internet is almost all advertising. When I go to get my E-mail, besides the usual tons of Spam, there are pop-up ads that cover the ads already on the web site. Does that make sense? Now, with everyone having a cell phone glued to their ears, I'm sure someone will find a way to broadcast commercials during lulls in the conversation.

Don't get me started on telemarketers. They invariably call in the middle of a meal. When you tell them that you're not interested, they keep on talking. Then they wonder why you hang up.

Yes, we Americans are drowning in advertising, which inspired me to write a short story called Psychic Pop-Up. Read it. If advertisers could do what the marketeers in my story do, they certainly would.

Psychic Pop-Up

by Joe Vadalma

(First appeared in Planet Magazine, Sept. 2003)

George Slimey was somewhat daunted by Pricella Lucretia, vice-president of sales of the Pharmaceutical Institute Laboratories Ltd., his largest client. She had jet black hair twisted into a complicated bun, a pinstriped power business suit over her overabundant curves, thick red lipstick in a mouth twisted into an expression of contempt and mascara laid on so thick her eyes seemed sunken in her pale skin. There was something almost demon-like about her. She lit up one of her skinny evil-smelling cigars with a gold lighter. She pointed it at Slimey. "What we want are results. Not bee ess. Despite all the money we've tossed down the drain, your ad campaign, flashy as it is, has not done anything for sales on Perkup. In fact, last months sales dropped to their lowest point. This is your last chance, Slimey. Next month we move to another agency."

The product she alluded to was a dietary supplement which was touted as a pill that energized a person, gave them feelings of well-being, ensured rapid weight-loss without dieting or exercise, lowered cholesterol, rid the person of wrinkles, improved sexual performance and slowed aging. Actually, no valid scientific tests except PILL's own lab reports had ever shown that it did any of those things. On the other hand, the side effects were horrendous, dry mouth, palpitations, itchy rashes, stomach cramps, diarrhea, possible blood clots leading to heart attack or stroke. Although it had been hushed up by handing large sums of money to their relatives, two healthy test subjects had died twenty-four hours after taking it. Originally it had been developed as a chemotherapy agent to fight colon cancer. Not only was it ineffective in fighting the disease, the cancer cells actually seemed to spread faster with its use. Also its effect on the patients was devastating; some autopsy results seemed to show that the people who had been taking it, might've died, not from the cancer, but from the product. Since PILL had produced an over abundance of the substance, upper management decided to market it as a supplement.

Slimey rolled his eyes and smiled sickly. "You must give us time, Pricella ..."

"I don't like familiarities from business associates. Ms. Lucretia, if you please." She puffed out black smoke into Slimey's face.

"Yes, of course. I'm sorry. But, as I was saying, we need to get the campaign rolling."

"So you say." Her face became as red and ugly as a lobster with outrage. Smoke from her cigar curled around her head to form horns. When she opened her mouth, her pointed bicuspids seemed extra long, and her tongue flicked in and out like a snake's. "As I said, because you've done well in the past, we're allowing you an extra month. If sales don't improve by a week from today, it's ..." She slid her forefinger with its long sharp nail across her windpipe.

Slimey wiped perspiration from his brow. "Don't worry, Pri... Ms. Lucretia, Slimey Enterprises has never let a client down."

***

After Lucretia left, Slimey called Robert Kissheiny, the account executive, into his office. "Bob, how's everything going with the PILL account?"

Kissheiny smiled pleasantly. "Splendidly, George. Things couldn't be better."

Slimey pounded his fist on the desk. "Crap. That evil female, Pricella Lucretia, was just here." He shook a finger at Kissheiny. "She complained that sales have been awful on Perkup."

Kissheiny's face drooped until he resembled an aging bloodhound. "Oh, Perkup. Sorry George, I thought you meant their other products."

"Look Bob, PILL is our largest client, and Perkup is the product they want results on. I placed you in charge because I thought you were our most competent ad exec. If we lose this client, not only will you be out on the street, but I'll personally see that you never work in advertising again. What exactly is the problem?"

Kissheiny looked about to burst into tears. "It's the product itself, Mister Slimey. Word has sort of leaked out about its ... uh ... less desirable characteristics. We've tried everything to laud its marvelous curative powers. We've run humorous ads on TV day and night -- including, mind you -- during the Super Bowl, put full size spreads in newspapers and magazine, had telemarketers call people at all hours of the day and night, put pop-up ads that are impossible to suppress on all the most popular web sites, and constructed huge billboards on all the most scenic highways. Our salesman have lavished huge gifts on physicians in every major city to recommend Perkup to their patients. We even tried sky writing. Nothing seems to work."

Slimey rubbed his chin. "The trouble is that none of those things actually make the consumer buy the product. Some of our surveys seem to show that people resent saturation advertising for some reason. I don't know what this country is coming to. Anyway, the onus is on you, Kissheiny. You've got to come up with some new ideas. Or else ..." He slid a finger across his Adam's apple.

***

Kissheiny spent the rest of the afternoon at his desk staring out the window, hardly moving except to chain smoke several packs of cigarettes. He knew his career was in the toilet. He'd tried every approach he could think of to sell that poison, Perkup. By next month, there would be no more six digit salary, no more luxury limo complete with driver, no more wood paneled office with its own bathroom and shower, no more thousand dollar tailored suits, no more dates with beautiful models. He'd be back on the streets selling cheap watches out of a suitcase. He racked his brain for some new method to get the public to buy Perkup, but came up empty.

He unlocked the bottom left hand drawer of his desk and slid it open. He stared into it at the items lying there; a revolver, a package of shells for it, and a bottle of Jack Daniels. He took out the whiskey, took a big pull and replaced it. He removed the pistol and shells, slowly loaded the pistol and raised it to his head. Before he could squeeze the trigger, his secretary buzzed him. "Yes, Doris," he said in a quaking voice.

"There's a woman here to see you. A Madam Zolarago. She says she has an appointment, but I can't find her listed on your calendar."

Madam Zolarago, he thought. He'd forgotten that he'd made an appointment with a new psychic. He was a great believer in astrology and the occult and often visited psychics. Quickly, he put the gun away and locked the drawer. "Send her in."

Madam Zolarago was a middle-aged woman on the plump side with enormous breasts, wearing too much jewelry, too much makeup and unfashionable garments. Thick black unruly hair hung to her waist. Dark eyes gazed intensely at Kissheiny in a way that made him uncomfortable so that he had to turn away.

Nonetheless, he rose and put out his hand. "Good afternoon, Madam Zolargo. I'm sorry, but I almost forgotten our appointment. I've had a lot of things on my mind lately."

As she shook his hand with pointed carmine nails like stilettos, she said, "I see that Mister Kissheiny. You seem to be a troubled man. Your aura is very dark."

"You're quite right. Some business problems ..."

She plumped down in a guest chair without being asked. "Perhaps I can help. Although I sense a troubled soul, I see a great light in your future. Sometimes things seem darkest just before the dawn -- as the adage goes."

Her saying that seemed to take some of horror of his situation off his shoulders. Perhaps she was right. What was it that Slimey was always saying? Oh yes. There are no problems, only opportunities. If he could come up with a unique method for getting people to purchase Perkup, he'd be a hero, probably get a huge bonus of stock options. If Madam Zolarago could predict the future, maybe she saw the solution.

After swearing her to secrecy, he told her his dilemma with Perkup.

She placed her fingers to her temple and went into a trance. After a few moments, she opened her eyes. "Yes, that's it. You must see Professor Belial at the university."

"Professor Belial?"

"Yes. He's a friend of mine. You may mention my name. He has something. I'm not sure what it is exactly. But I have a vision. In my vision, I see a look of delight on both your faces when he tells you of his discovery."

Kissheiny became excited. He hoped she was right ... but of course, she was right. After all, she was a medium with an excellent reputation among true believers like himself. "Really? Thank you, Madam Zolarago. By the way, how much is your fee?"

She waved her hand. "I never charge a fee. I simply enjoy helping people. Of course, if you would like to give a donation to my nonprofit organization."

"Of course, of course. How shall I make out the check?"

"Madam Zolargo's Psychic Institute."

He was feeling expansive and wrote the check out for a substantial amount. He felt as though Madam Zolargo had saved his life.

***

Professor Belial's office was in an obscure corner of the university, in a basement actually, after Kissheiny made his way through a labyrinth of corridors, laboratories and stairwells. The room itself was gloomy and a mess. Hundreds of ancient books lined the walls and spilled over onto the floor. Belial's desk was covered with them along with charts, strange talismans, broken pencils and a large magnifying glass. Belial himself, as he stood to greet Kissheiny, was tall with shoulder-length brown hair, a VanDyck style beard and mustache, elf-like ears and the most penetrating eyes Kissheiny had ever seen under bushy eyebrows.

"Madam Zolargo recommended you to me," Kissheiny said after their initial greetings.

"Yes, she told me." Belial's voice was a deep baritone that somehow seemed to fit his sharp features and cruel mouth. "Are you interested in the supernatural, Mister Kissheiny? That is what I do, y'know. Psychic research."

"I am, but she told me that you've made a recent discovery that may help me in my business."

"May I ask what business you're in?"

"Advertising. I'm an account executive at an agency."

Belial stroked his beard. "Yes, I suppose that my discovery could be an aid in your business. I never thought of it in practical terms before. I was simply doing pure research."

Kissheiny brightened up considerably. Perhaps Madam Zolargo had been right. He had been having doubts. "What's this discovery?"

"Are you familiar with the term, human aura?"

"Yes, it's like emanations given off by the soul."

"Actually the aura and the soul are the same thing. But, as you say, it gives off emanations. In people with strong ESP potential, these emanations can be intercepted by them. I have found that these emanations can be amplified to the point that thought transfer or telepathy can be done by anyone through my Psychic Enhancer. Would you like to experience a demonstration?"

"Yes. Of course." Kissheiny felt that this all very interesting, but he wondered how it could help him sell Perkup.

Belial went to a cabinet and brought a metallic box that contained several dials and meters. He plugged it in a wall socket and attached an aluminum band which he placed on his head. Suddenly, a voice in Kissheiny's mind said, "Are you receiving my thoughts?"

"Oh my! That's something. It's as though you were speaking directly to my brain."

"Not you brain, your aura," the voice in his head said.

Belial removed the band and turned off the machine. "Well, what do you think?"

An idea began to form in Kissheiny's mind. "Suppose this enhancer of yours was increased in power, could it direct your thoughts to several people -- at say a great distance?"

Belial twisted his mustache. "I imagine so. I've never tried. It would be an interesting experiment though."

"How would you like to become a millionaire?"

"A millionaire? Surely, you're joking."

"No. If it can do what I think it can do, you and I will be rolling in dough."

Kissheiny put Belial on the company payroll as a consultant. He hired an engineering firm to build a duplicate of Belial's machine only with a thousand times more power. It was ready in a week.

***

Robert Drudge was at his desk shuffling papers from his in-box to his out-box, when a sudden thought came to him out of the blue, almost like a voice in his head. It said, "Want to improve yourself. Get a better job. Take Perkup." Right after work, he went to the pharmacy around the corner.

Oliver Crude and his mistress were going at it hot and heavy in a hotel room. It was taking him a while to get to the point of the whole thing, when suddenly he rolled off of her and cried, "I know what I need. Some Perkup. I'll be back in a little while, baby. There's something I have to get at the drugstore."

Hundreds of similar scenes were happening all over the city. Pharmacies and other stores that sold Perkup were getting more customers than they could handle and soon ran out of the supplement. Orders came into PILL faster than they could be filled. The manufacturing division went to three shifts to keep up. Doctors' offices were jammed with patients with symptoms described in the small print on the Perkup labels. Several seemingly healthy people died suddenly from a mysterious malady that had health officials scratching their heads.

***

Pricella Lucretia flicked ashes somewhere near the tray on Slimey's desk. "Well Slimey, I have to congratulate you. Your ad campaign is finally doing some good. Bring out your contract, I'm ready to sign for another year. In fact, we've got a new product in the works called Zoom which we'll have ready to market as soon as we have the bugs to worked out. We had to fire the head of the research staff. He kept putting out reports that said that Zoom was dangerous even to handle. Can you beat that? What a fool."

"Yes. Good help is hard to get. Some people choose integrity above company loyalty. Not my employees though. I weed out the bad apples quickly. As far as our ad campaign, far be from me to crow, but it was simply a matter of a new approach that I came up with the account exec."

Actually Slimey had no idea how Kissheiny had turned things around. He made a note to ask him soon. He slid the new contract over to Lucretia. She read it over carefully and placed it on the desk to sign. As Slimey handed her a pen, she suddenly put her hand to her head and looked pained.

"What's the matter, Pricella? Aren't you feeling well?"

She grimaced at him. "I've got to see my psychiatrist. Lately I've been hearing voices in my head telling me to take Perkup. I must be having a breakdown." She quickly signed the contract and left the office in such a hurry that Slimey didn't have time to tell her that he had also been hearing voices. I wonder who her shrink is, he thought. Maybe I should see one too. It's the stress of this job. It gets to you after a while.

***

After the success of Perkup, Kissheiny realized what a gold mine he really had with Belial's invention. Any product could be sold that way. People could ignore TV, radio and newspaper ads, hang up on telemarketers and buy antipopup software for their computers, but they could not ignore what was in their heads. He resigned Slimey Marketing and opened a new ad agency in partnership with Belial called Psychic Advertising Industries Network (PAIN for short). When word got around about his success with PILL's premier product, clients by the hundreds waited outside his door to sign up.

At first he kept the Psychic Enhancer a secret, but soon industrial spies obtained the plans. Their employers made incremental improvements to get around patent infringements and began their own mental ad campaigns. Before long, everything was advertised in this manner. This had a disastrous effect on civilization. People's head became filled with slogans and jingles and nothing else. No one could think of anything else but the crazy ads in their brain, which became more numerous, louder and more insane every day.

And that's the true story of how twenty-first century civilization ended -- not with the holocaust of an atomic war, not with a mile long meteor slamming into New York City, not with coastal cities being inundated by the rising of the oceans, not with people gasping for breaths due to pollution from automobiles and industrial plants, but by walking around like zombies unable to think about anything except soda pop, hamburgers, stomach remedies, sexy cars and other products that filled their otherwise empty heads.

Actually, not much had changed from before the Psychic Enhancer came into general use.

The End

How My Morgaine Series Grew

I thought maybe some of you might be interested in how my Morgaine Series of novels became a series. It started with a song, Dancing in the Moonlight. When I heard that song, I pictured Wiccans or some other new age group in a meadow in the forest having some sort of ritual. I thought, Suppose an ordinary person became somehow involved with such a group by fate, not by choice. So I created Melody Trent, a young widow, who falls in love with a psychic, Michael Ellul. But, who is this Michael? I decided to make him a thousand year old sorcerer who had been granted this extended life by a demon. I figured that Melody should have a rival for Michael's affection, so I created Morgaine Fabiano, a witch. I threw in some other complications such as Isaac the robot and soon I had a novel, which I titled Dancing in the Moonlight.

When I found a publisher for it, it was an E-book publisher, Renaissance E-Books. The publisher thought it was too long for an E-book. She wanted me to split it into two novels, which I did. They became the first two novels in the series, Morgaine and Michael, and Morgaine and Melody.

I was not quite satisfied with the ending. I thought to myself, What is going to happen when Melody ages and Michael remains youthful? It seems like he would disappear from her life after a while. Perhaps he would seek a means to restore her youth so that she would remain his lover and companion through the long centuries. And what would Melody do when he disappears? Hunt for him, of course. Well, she couldn't do this herself, so she hires Raven Lenore, a tough PI and Wiccan (a witch to catch a wizard). And of course, Morgaine has to fit into the story somehow. She returns as demon in order to somehow regain the love of Michael. Mix in a meglomaniac out to steal Michael's robot, and viola, you have Morgaine and Raven, a suspense thriller.

In the next novel, I told the story of how Morgaine became a witch in the first place, and how she met Michael for the first and second times, and from her point of view, why she did the things she did. Alas, this also turned out to be too long and had to be split into two books, Morgaine and Gretchen, and Morgaine and Asmodeus.

As a writer of science-fiction and fantasy, one of the things that's great fun to write about is the end of the world. I used the Book of Revelations of the Bible as a sort of outline plus some stuff from the internet about Armageddon, included the possibility of earth being struck by a gigantic meteorite, threw in Frankenstein, Dracula and various demons, bad guys, aliens and other strange characters. And of course the schemes of Morgaine played a big part. This weird mix became Morgaine and Armageddon.

At that point, I thought I was done with Morgaine and company. But then I thought, With all the strange things that had happened at Moonwood (Michael's mansion in the country), it would make a great background for a haunted house story. So I invented two new characters, a young engaged couple, Tom and Bridget, who were hired as contractors to repair the mansion. Of course, Morgaine and various demons and ghosts make life at Moonwood hell for the couple. I called this book Morgaine and Moonwood. My sequal to this is what happens after Bridget has the baby that she conceived when she was raped by the demon Asmodeus. This was to be the final book of the series and was called Morgaine and Nicholas. Nonetheless, I followed it up with Morgaine and the Necromancer.

Driverless Cars

Technology is moving so rapidly now-a-days that it's hard to keep up. Here are some of newest gadgets either in the test phase or already on the market. First off, Google (of all companies) have been testing a car that drives itself. Six specially equipped Toyota Priuses and one Audi TT have logged more than 140,000 miles from San Francisco's crooked Lombard Street to Hollywood Boulevard. They use Google's map technology as well as "video cameras, radar sensors and a laser range finder to 'see' other traffic." (All the vehicles have an engineer in the driver's seat who can take over control at any time).

Even criminal activity using technology has picked up. Now it is easier for counterfeiters to generate fake bills. For this reason, the US Government has decided to improve the latest $100 bill yet again and make it nearly impossible to duplicate (at least for the time being). The most unique part about the future currency is that when the bill is moved from side to side, the new images on the bill will appear to move up and down. When the bill is moved up and down, the image will appear to move from side to side. The expected release date for this new $100 bill will be sometime during the year of 2011.

One of the Air Force’s latest futuristic inventions, the Pain Ray (also known as the Active Denial System), has been designed for effective crowd control measures, similar to tear gas. The “Pain Ray” emits a powerful radiation beam that causes victims to feel a burning sensation and will send people running for cover. The potent beam is strong enough to penetrate clothes and lighter defenses, but it is not quite strong enough to pierce through walls.

A new military rifle called the XM25 is equipped with smart bullets including high explosive burst, armor-piercing, door breaching, anti-personnel and non-lethal. It allows a more options in tactical situations. For example, if prisoners are to be taken, the soldier can switch to a non-lethal round. Or if they need to take out an enemy sniper protected by a building or behind a hillside, an explosive smart bullet can be fired near the location of the enemy.

Most people would not expect a car that can go from 0-60 in under 3.2 seconds to be eco-friendly in the least, but the Porsche automakers beg to differ. This future car concept, the 918 Spyder, is supposed to be one of the fastest (if not the fastest) hybrid electric car on the market. It can teach tops speeds of 200 mph and gets 78 miles per gallon – double the amount most compact cars achieve on a good day.

Microsoft has recently announced an impressive addition to their popular X-Box video game system which will replace the standard controllers. Project Natal, has built in motion sensors that allows users to act out their moves instead of having to press buttons. If you are playing a fighting game (such as Street Fighter) you will actually have to do some physical kicks and punches to defeat your opponent. This new technology is also supposed to be equipped with voice and facial recognition software.

For the past couple of years the world’s top space program NASA has been working on a future design for the very first personal flying suit. The puffin, as they call it, measures to be 12 feet in length with a 15 foot wingspan. The aircraft module would land vertically, allowing for a person to step directly into it and has blades similar to that of helicopters. The puffin concept would relatively light weight and would use electric motors, allowing for high altitudes as well as being ecology-friendly.

I wonder what's next.

Misconceptions About Science

I don't know whether it's the way that science is taught in our school system, but many people have misconceptions regarding what science is and what it does. I believe this may be because most of what is taught in the lower grades and high school concerns the history of science, the achievements of science and known facts that science has discovered. To me, this absolutely the wrong approach. What science really is, is a process for discovering the truth about ourselves, our environment and the universe in general.

Like any human endeavor, to succeed it requires a method and the proper tools. The method is really simple, it starts with observations about the real world, from these observations the scientist forms a hypothesis, next he or she must perform experiments to determine whether the hypothesis is valid and true. The experiment must be repeatable by anyone using the same equipment and the same methods.

The tool that a scientist uses depends upon the particular science one is pursuing and the experiment required to prove or disprove the hypothesis. This may vary from simple observation, such as Jane Goodall has done in her study of gorillas, to sophisticated and expensive equipment such microscopes, computers, particle accelerators and high powered telescopes. The one tool used by all sciences is mathematics. It is the cornerstone on which all science depends.

Now for the misconceptions. The first one is that any theory put forth by science is totally correct for all time or is false. Critics of science often cite the fact that scientific theory is constantly changing as new facts are learned and our equipment becomes more sophisticated. We often speak of "laws," such as The Law of Gravity. This is simply a misnomer. There is no such thing as an unmodifable scientific law. Nonetheless, this does not mean the findings of science are not valid. Most of the great theories are still correct for ninety-nine percent of the cases for which they apply. It is only a few exceptions that cause theories to be modified.

The second great misconception is that science is anti-religion or anti-God. This is not true. It may show that what has been written in the past in so-called holy books is incorrect, but it neither proves nor disproves the existence of a First Cause or Supreme Being.

People into the occult or believe in ghosts, UFOs, big foot, telepathy, etc. claim that there is a conspiracy by the scientific community to ignore the evidence for the existence of such things. They have it all backwards. It is not up to the scientific community to prove their claims, but the people who make them to do so. For example, let us say that I claim that a ghost is haunting my house. To prove this claim, I need to produce the ghost for credible skeptical witnesses. At one time, a Professor Rhine claimed that he had proof that mental telepathy existed in certain people. It turned out that he fudged the results of his experiments. When others tried to duplicate his experiments, they did not get the same results.

Another misconception is to blame science for the misuse of the technology that results from scientific discoveries. In the first place, scientists seldom know what will result from their discoveries. Most scientific discoveries have benefited mankind. Knowing more about the universe we live in cannot be a bad thing.

Graceland Cemetery

Although it may be strange to some people, one of my favorite things to do is walking around cemeteries. In many of them, a lot of interesting artwork and history is in carved into headstones and mausoleums. I like to read the dates on them and try to imagine the lives of the people buried beneath the ground. One of the most interesting cemeteries in the world is Graceland in Chicago. It is located on Clark Street near my old neighborhood and not far from Wrigley Field. My dad, grandparents and other relatives are buried there.

The thing that is so great about Graceland are the many artistic monuments. Many famous Chicagoans are buried there including Marshall Field (the department store czar), Potter Palmer (owned the famous Palmer House hotel in Chicago), Cyrus McCormick (inventor of the mechanical reaper), and Philip Armour (founded Armour Meat Packing). Graceland was established in 1860 and received a perpetual charter from the State of Illinois. The western boundary (Clark Street) was an old Indian trail.

Now I want to describe some of the more interesting monuments. There is a statue of a vine-covered woman by the grave of Eli Williams, who came to Chicago in 1830 and died in 1881. Next, there is the Statue of Death, a bronze figure entitled Eternal Silence. It marks the burial plot of the Dexter Graves family. The hooded bronze figure is grim and forbidding picture of death. Another interesting statue is at the grave of Victor Lawson. It depicts a crusading knight in armor holding a shield. Lawson was a newspaper publisher. He published the Chicago Daily News (no longer in circulation).

Peter Shoenhoffer, a wealthy brewer, had an Egyptian-like pyramid built over his resting place. The pyramid shaped mausoleum is guarded by an angel and a sphinx. The inventor of the Pullman railroad car, George Pullman, has a large monument with a large Doric column. Beneath the monument, he lies in a coffin covered in tar paper and asphalt inside a concrete block the size of a room. Another Egyptian style tomb is that of Martin Ryerson, lumberman. It consists of a mastaba capped by a pyramid.

What I have described here are only a few of the amazing statues and monuments in Graceland. If you visit Chicago, I rank it as one of the must-see sights of this great city.

Exoplanets Suitable for Life

Recently astronomers have discovered planets in orbit around most stars close enough to determine whether they have planets. But of all those billions of planetary systems, which have planets capable of supporting life? At present we do not have the technology to look closely at those systems. Of our own solar system, as far as we can tell, earth is the only one capable of supporting life. There are two other planets that might support life. Mars may have supported life in the past, but so far no concrete evidence of this has discovered. Europa, a moon of Jupiter, has a liquid ocean. Perhaps life developed there (if the ocean is water).

So what makes earth unique in the solar system. First, it is not too hot nor too cold to sustain life. Most of the planets and moons further from the sun than Mars are too cold. Mercury and Venus are too hot. Although Venus is not so close to the sun that a temperature within a range to support life is ruled out for that reason. Venus is sometimes regarded as earth's sister planet. Venus is only slightly smaller than Earth (95% of Earth's diameter, 80% of Earth's mass). Because of these similarities, it was thought that below its dense clouds Venus might be very Earth like and might even have life. Unfortunately, we now know that Venus may be the least hospitable place for life in the solar system.

The pressure of Venus' atmosphere at the surface is about the same as the pressure at a depth of one km in Earth's oceans. It is composed mostly of carbon dioxide. There are several layers of clouds many kilometers thick composed of sulfuric acid. These clouds completely obscure our view of the surface. This dense atmosphere produces a runaway greenhouse effect that raises Venus' surface temperature hot enough to melt lead. Venus' surface is actually hotter than Mercury's despite being nearly twice as far from the Sun.

Another factor to support life as we know it is the presence of water. Apparently Mars once had liquid water on its surface, but it no longer does. Another problem with Mars is its thin atmosphere. One possible reason that it no longer has water and air is its small mass. Any smaller planet would likely be completely airless like our own moon.

Hence, it can be seen that although three planets are in a zone capable of supporting life as far as distance from our star (the sun), only one can support life. The other two are too dry. One has an atmosphere that is too thick, the other an atmosphere that is too thin. Thus, it can be seen that planets capable of supporting life are relatively rare. The question is how rare. If ten percent of planets in the galaxy are capable of supporting life, there may be nine billion planet capable of supporting life. If this number is one percent there would nine hundred million; one tenth of one percent , ninety million. That's still a lot of planets capable of supporting life.

What's Beyond the Universe

Have you ever thought about infinity? Or read what modern cosmologists have to say about the universe? Back a few centuries, people who thought about such things figured that the universe consisted of the earth which was surround by crystal spheres. Astronomers (actually astrologers) of those days never wrote about what was outside the outermost crystal sphere. Then came along Copernicus, Galileo and Newton and the universe expanded somewhat to the size of the solar system and the fixed stars out there somewhere; nobody knew how far. When astronomers gazed through more powerful telescopes and other sophisticated gear, suddenly the universe expanded to billions of light years in size.

But how far did it go? Did it stretch on forever? In the early part of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein proposed his Theory of Relativity. This and other discoveries changed everything. Cosmologists began to think of the universe as a great expanding ball (or some other shape) that had a definite limit.

Okay, that is the current view of our universe. But if our universe is a great ball (or some other shape) curved in the fourth dimension, what lies outside of it? Recent articles I have read about what modern cosmologists and physicist think about the universe speak of "multiverses." I wonder what they are like.

Here are some thoughts on the matter. Not all of them are mine. According to one viewpoint,. the universe is defined to be everything, including space and time itself. Since the universe includes all space, there can be nothing "outside" the universe.

However, the Big Bang theory changed the view of cosmologists and others who study such things completely. According to the Big Bang theory, the Big Bang was not an explosion in a preexisting three-dimensional space, with matter and light expanding out into empty space from some central point; instead, matter and energy are understood to fill all of space (i.e. "the universe"), and what's expanding is space ("the universe") itself. But, wait a minute, if it's expanding, what is it expanding into?

The Big Bang theory is based on Einstein's theory of general relativity, which explains that gravity of matter/energy causes space-time to curve. The amount of curve depends on the average density of matter/energy throughout the universe, a consequence of this is that the universe as a whole can be curved, with either positive curvature, zero curvature, or negative curvature.

To visualize a closed universe with positive curvature, drop the dimensions by one. Instead of curved three-dimensional space, picture a two-dimensional universe in which two-dimensional space is curved into a sphere, and "expanding space" means that the sphere is blowing up like a balloon while the bits of two dimensional matter on the surface do not change in size. You can see that if you pasted a bunch of bits of paper on a balloon and then blew it up, each bit would see the other bits receding from it. This is what astronomers observe, when they view distant galaxies.

If you made a movie of the balloon blowing up and play the movie backwards, after a while the size of the sphere approaches zero, all the bits of matter throughout the balloon universe get more and more squished together and approach infinite density as the size approaches zero. This is what the big bang is supposed to be. Of course, this analogy forces you to picture the two dimensional surface of the sphere expanding into a third dimension, and our curved three dimensional space is expanding into four dimensional space. The question becomes what else is in the fourth dimensional space? Other balloons (universes)?

Also, if space is curved in the fourth dimension, what happens if you travel in a straight line as far as you could go? Would you return to your starting point? And if the fourth dimension is time, would you return to the point in time when you started your journey?

On the other hand, J. Bruno wrote: "The center of the universe is everywhere, as well as its border but does not exist anywhere." Thus, the universe has a center that exists everywhere and borders that exist everywhere. Think about this. Does this statement violate any physical or philosophical rules or not? If the answer is "not," the universe is and will stay infinite and isotropic.

Not everyone agrees. According to Stephen Hawkins, a black hole transports information to another universe. Another theory hypothesizes that there are many (perhaps an infinite number of) universes outside our own. In fact, one theory is that there is a larger universe of which our universe is only a part, like an atom of something much larger.

There is also the theory of parallel universes in which a new universe is created whenever two or more possible futures occur. That each possibility creates a new universe which is almost identical to the ones parallel to it except in one the change occurred one way, and in the other, it occurred the other way.

Of course, all this brings up the question of what is the universe composed. When we say that space is curved, what is this curved "space" composed of? Nothing? How can nothing be curved? It seems that there are more questions than answers. For more confusing answers and questions, go to any web site on modern cosmology.