Santa traveling through the multiverse – Captured in Austin, Texas – Dec. 25, 2019 (photo credit: SurfingTheUniverse.com)
20200513W Santa Cruz, CA: I spent last Christmas at my brother’s place in Austin, Texas. In walking around the neighborhood, I saw this Santa decoration. Looking at the looped version of the photo, I notice the periodic nature of the propellers and the beat of distortion. The distortion beats stimulate my imagination about how it might look to see someone traveling through the multiverse. The propellers represent for me the power that repeated habits and continuous focus can have, and how this is the power of free will which enables me to travel inter-dimensionally from one reality to another. Or at least that is how it feels and makes sense to me.
Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, protestors were going to the shopping malls not to buy presents, but to protest for human rights.
Hong Kong protesters in Sha Tin shopping mall – Hong Kong – Dec. 25, 2019 (photo credit: REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson)
I find it interesting to notice that this scene, which shows protestors wearing masks, looks normal in the post-pandemic world. At the time, mask wearing was illegal. Today, not wearing masks is illegal in some places. It’s easy to imagine a current day in which those in Hong Kong are still in the shopping mall wearing masks, and yet there is no pandemic. It is interesting to notice how some things remain constant in the timeline we experience, even if the meaning of that constant thing is different.
From Ang Ku Kueh Girl and Friend’s Chinese New Year sticker pack
20200512T Santa Cruz, CA: In this post, I’ll be discussing the origins of the coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2 in the different sets of universes around us. Some of these universes will match the official view and some of these universes will align with conspiracy theories. Most of these universes will interfere with one another and have overlapping characteristics.
The first statement out of China was that SARS-CoV-2 was believed to have originated at a wet market in Wuhan, a large city in Hubei Province, China. Many of the early cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, were found in individuals who shopped at Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. The market was closed on Jan 1, 2020, and any evidence of origin was believed to have been destroyed. A few days ago, a WHO scientist Dr. Peter Ben Embarek stated that samples taken from the wet market show that the market likely played a role in the COVID-19 outbreak. Specifically, he stated:
The market played a role in the event, that’s clear. But what role we don’t know. Whether it was the source or amplifying setting or just a coincidence that some cases were detected in and around that market,” said Dr Peter Ben Embarek in a press briefing.
Notice how this statement does not limit us to universes in which SARS-CoV-2 originated in the wet market, but also includes universes where it amplified the spread of COVID-19 and also universes in which it played no role and was only coincidentally connected.
The main unofficial and so-called conspiracy theory is that SARS-CoV-2 originated in the Wuhan Biolab not far from the wet market. This theory is circumstantial based mainly on the fact that the biolab does perform research on bat coronaviruses. This theory has two sub-theories – one in which the virus is a bioweapon and one in which it is a natural virus. There are also two overlapping sub-theories – one in which the virus was intentionally released and one in which it was accidentally released. The accidentally released theory can be further divided into one in which a lab worker is accidentally infected and one in which samples are improperly discarded.
If we assume that there is a set of universes for each of these theories and sub-theories, then the reality we see will likely be an interference pattern of these different sets of universes until one set reveals itself.
Let’s make the hypothesis/assumption that sets of universes that are in conflict will repel each other and sets of universes that are congruent will attract one another. We can begin to see a set of universes that fit together with the following features:
The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, a wet market, played a role in the outbreak.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), a Biosafety Level 4 Laboratory, played a role in the outbreak.
SARS-CoV-2 was a coronavirus being studied at WIV.
SARS-CoV-2 found a way from WIV to individuals at the wet market, which was the first identified outbreak.
There are also universes where the WIV is not involved and SARS-CoV-2 is found to have come from livestock sold at the wet market. However, the future in which this is true does not appear to be sending any indications to the present that are detectible. It doesn’t fit in well with the other universes. If SARS-CoV-2 is found in live animals, it is most likely in bats not local to the Wuhan area and most likely bats from which virus samples had been collected by lab workers at WIV.
Since the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has been sequenced, two other coronavirus sequences have been released. The first one released is labeled RaTG13, from a sample collected in 2013 in the Yunnan province. Comparison between RaTG13 (MN996532.1) and SARS–CoV–2-Wuhan-Hu1 (MN908947.3) show that they had a most recent common ancestor estimated at 50 years ago. The second one released is labeled RmYN02, which is shown to have a most recent common ancestor estimated at 35 years ago. Neither one of these is likely to be the natural ancestor of the virus, due to the number of mutations between each and SARS-CoV-2.
Full-length genome sequences were obtained from five patients at an early stage of the outbreak. The sequences are almost identical and share 79.6% sequence identity to SARS-CoV. Furthermore, we show that 2019-nCoV is 96% identical at the whole-genome level to a bat coronavirus.
This second one I wish was explained more in how the “then found” occurred.
We then found that a short region of RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) from a bat coronavirus (BatCoV RaTG13)—which was previously detected in Rhinolophus affinis from Yunnan province—showed high sequence identity to 2019-nCoV.
20200511M Santa Cruz, CA: What I found interesting about this animation of the last solar eclipse (on Dec. 26, 2019) is how the shadow of the moon onto the Earth changes shape looks similar to how various things look in the real world, such as the shape of a water drop. This analogy helps me visualize our 3-D classical world as a “shadow” of a multi-dimensional quantum world.
The moon’s shadow on the Earth reminds me of the shape of a water dropping from a faucet – May 11th, 2020 (Credit: SurfingTheUniverse.com)
Screenshot of two coronavirus trackers on May 11, 2020, 20:23 GMT that average out to 4,196,452 – which is close to the 2^22=4,194,304 which represents a doubling of official cases every 8 days since November 17, 2019
In 20200507h Day 128: About 8 day average confirmed COVID-19 case doubling time since first case Nov 17, 2019, I noted that assuming a first case of COVID-19 on November 17, 2019, if confirmed cases had doubled every 8 days, then today we would have 4,194,304 cases. Well, an hour ago I took a screenshot of the two coronavirus trackers and the average of the two is 4,196,452. Due to the social distancing measures now in place throughout the world, to the seasonal nature of coronavirus infections, and to the now ramped up testing, we are no longer increasing cases at an 8-day doubling rate.
If our confirmed cases had exactly doubled every 8 days, here is how the cases would have grown, with comparison to confirmed cases reported:
According to the government data seen by the Post, a 55 year-old from Hubei province could have been the first person to have contracted Covid-19 on November 17.
From that date onwards, one to five new cases were reported each day. By December 15, the total number of infections stood at 27 – the first double-digit daily rise was reported on December 17 – and by December 20, the total number of confirmed cases had reached 60.
On December 27, Zhang Jixian, a doctor from Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, told China’s health authorities that the disease was caused by a new coronavirus. By that date, more than 180 people had been infected, though doctors might not have been aware of all of them at the time.
By the final day of 2019, the number of confirmed cases had risen to 266, On the first day of 2020 it stood at 381.
20200511M Santa Cruz, CA: On the 27th of December, I attended my cousin’s wedding in Texas. I didn’t realize that wedding ceremonies like this would be a rarity in 2020.
San Antonio Botanical Garden, Dec. 27, 2019 (Credit: SurfingTheUniverse.com)
The stock market also hit a high for the year on this date. I found this article and headline by Ben Levisohn of barrons.com to be appropriate looking back:
The market will probably have a hard time living up to 2019. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen 23% in 2019 after gaining 190.17 points, or 0.7%, to 28,645.26, this past week, while the S&P 500 index has gained 29% after rising 0.6%, to 3240.02, and the Nasdaq Composite has climbed 36% after finishing the week up 0.9%, at 9006.62. The S&P 500 and the Dow both closed the week at all-time highs.
For reference, today – May 11th – the DOW closed at 24,221.99, the S&P 500 index closed at 2930.19, and the Nasdaq closed at 9192.34.
As the market attempts to perform a V recovery as Trump wishes, these final thoughts of this article are worth noting:
All that’s missing is what could go wrong. We have a few things: The trade war between the U.S. and China could heat up again. Europe could become President Donald Trump’s next trade target. Inflation could heat up and cause the Fed to start thinking about raising rates again. And the economic acceleration the market appears to be expecting might simply fail to show up.
Everyone else may be looking at the bright side. We have our doubts.
surfing the universe 