The Epic Nikon D850!

"Thus I beheld assemble the fair school
Of that lord of the song pre-eminent,
Who o'er the others like an eagle soars."
--Dante on Homer in The Divine Comedy Longfellow translation

"As, in the serious style, Homer is pre-eminent among poets. . ." --Aristotle's Poetics
"Homer, the sovereign poet." --Dante Alighieri, Divina Commedia.
"Follow your own star." --Dante
". . they all fall off, one by one, until we are left with Virgil and Homer, and perhaps Homer alone." -Thomas Jefferson

"Science arose from poetry... when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends." -Goethe
dx4/dt=ic -- Dr. E signs all his fine art with Moving Dimension Theory's equation, and it graces all the 45surf clothes.
The theory's odyssey, like all science, begins in the "Rage of Achilles."

Dr. E's ten-foot-wide, fine-art panorama: The Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid

John Ford. John Wayne. Stagecoach. The Searchers. Easy Rider and 2001 A Space Odyssey. All exalted, and were exalted by, the world's most epic, natural stage--Monument Valley. It is easy to see why the greatest storytellers gravitated towards this scenery, for the towering monuments stand forth like archetypal mythology herself--reminding us of the hardness and immutability of the heroic heart as it stands tall for principle at high noon, as well as her soft, ever-changing beauty, as the lofty clouds paint the red land in shadow and light. The great director Sergio Leone, who chiseled the young Clint Eastwood into an international star in A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly stated, "The greatest scriptwriter of Westerns was Homer. The Archetypes of yesterday's cowboys were Achilles, Ajax, Agamemnon, and Hector." The first half of Virgil's Aeneid paralleled the Odyssey, while the second half followed the plot of the Iliad. Socrates would cite the Heroic honor of Achilles while choosing death over dishonor in Fathering Western Philosophy (and thus science and technology!), while Virgil would mentor Dante on down through hell in the Inferno, where Dante would also encounter Homer, calling him the "premiere poet." In his later years the great poet who authored the Declaration of Independence--Thomas Jefferson would write, "As we advance in life, they all fall off, one by one, until we are left with Virgil and Homer, and perhaps Homer alone." And so it is that as the rains fall year after year, and the rivers run, the body of the land is etched away so as to reveal the immortal soul, and towering there we can see the unyielding poetry--the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid. Trust me on this--take a copy of the Iliad when you visit Monument Valley.

Ecce Deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur mihi.
("Behold, a deity/goddess stronger than I; who coming, shall rule over me.")
--Dante in La Vita Nuova on Beatrice--his muse and inspiration for The Divine Comedy

45SURF Hero's Odyssey Gear for your Epic Adventure.

Homer's Iliad Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another. And which of the gods was it that set them on to quarrel? It was the son of Jove and Leto; for he was angry with the king and sent a pestilence upon the host to plague the people, because the son of Atreus had dishonoured Chryses his priest. Now Chryses had come to the ships of the Achaeans to free his daughter, and had brought with him a great ransom: moreover he bore in his hand the sceptre of Apollo wreathed with a suppliant's wreath and he besought the Achaeans, but most of all the two sons of Atreus, who were their chiefs. "Sons of Atreus," he cried, "and all other Achaeans, may the gods who dwell in Olympus grant you to sack the city of Priam, and to reach your homes in safety; but free my daughter, and accept a ransom for her, in reverence to Apollo, son of Jove." --translated by Samuel Butler

"Sandro Botticelli - La nascita di Venere - Google Art Project - edited" by Sandro Botticelli - Adjusted levels from File:Sandro Botticelli - La nascita di Venere - Google Art Project.jpg, originally from Google Art Project. Compression Photoshop level 9.. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

45surf exalts the epic goddess archetype: The Birth of Venus (Botticelli)

"Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy." --Beethoven. Dr. E: Come ride with us--the mentors of all mentors--the fellowship of immortal souls who have ever "sailed beyond the sunset" and headed West alongside Ulysses. Dante called Homer "the sovereign poet" while Virgil, who structured the first half of his Aeneid like Homer's Odyssey and the second half like the Iliad from where he borrowed his lead character thev "pius" Aeneas, mentored Dante on down through Hell. Thomas Jefferson wrote, "as we advance in life these things fall off one by one, and I suspect that we are left at last with only Homer and Virgil, and perhaps Homer alone." Socrates, who mentored Plato who in turn mentored Aristotle whom Dante labeled "the master of those who know," cited the courage of Achilles in Homer's Iliad, when he stood for Truth and Reason over politics before the Athenian Jury. Like Achilles, Socrates knew that he would die for refusing to back down from the philosophical battle and rescind his simple teaching that "Virtue/Arete does not come from money, but money and every lasting good of man derives from Virtue." Aristotle considered Homer the greatest of epic poets, as did Shelley and George Chapman, who designated Homer the "Prince of Poets" while translating the Iliad into the form that Abraham Lincoln would eventually read, leading Lincoln to state, "Everything that one needs to know about his fellow man may be found herein." Alexander the Great carried Homer's Iliad upon all his expeditions, and during his presidency, Lincoln traveled with a well-worn copy of Shakespeare's works, while Jefferson wrote that Shakespeare ought be read in the evening and, singled out by one who wishes to learn the full powers of the English language." And so it is that Dr. E's class begins with Homer and ends with Hamlet, and I invite ye to come ride with us all. --from Dr. E's The Hero's Odyssey Mythology Code of Honor.

Dr. E's NSF-funded Ph.D. dissertation titled Multiple Unit Artificial Retina Chipset to Aid The Visually Impaired and Enhanced CMOS Phototransistors received a Merill Lynch Innovations Award, and the technology is now helping the blind see. Dr. E receieved the Tanner Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching while at UNC Chapel Hill as well as an honorary membership in the American Soceity of Physics Teachers. Recently, upon donating some of his fine art photography to a hospital following a successful gallery show in LA, Dr. E realized that someday soon, a patient would see one of his fine art images hanging in the hospital's hallways with the retinal prosthesis from his physics Ph.D. dissertation.  The appendix of the dissertation concerned itself with theoretical physics known as Moving Dimensions Theory--a theory born from Dr. E's days working with the late John Archibald Wheeler at Princeton University--and Dr. E signs all of his fine art with its simple, far-reaching equation--dx4/dt=ic.  In words, dx4/dt=ic stipulates that the fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions at the rate of c (the velocity of light), and that photons of light are are but momenergy that surfs this fourth expanding dimension.  MDT weaves change into the foundational fabric of spacetime, and too, it provides the foundational mechanism for all motion--the fourth expanding dimension is what carries every photon along its odyssey. In his paper, "A Hero's Odyssey with Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Planck, Einstein, Schrodinger, Bohr, and the Greats towards Moving Dimensions Theory. E pur si muove," Dr. E writes, MDT provides both the "elementary foundations" of relativity that Einstein yet sought, and the foundational physical reality underlying and causing quantum nonlocality and entanglement, which Schrodinger labeled th "characteristic trait" of QM. Einstein's Principle of Relativity, as well as his two postulates, derive from MDT's simple physical model (Fig. 1) and single postulate which is more concise and has the added benefits of providing for free will, liberating us from the block universe, weaving change into the fundamental fabric of space-time for the first time in the history of relativity, and providing an elementary, foundational physical model for time and all its arrows and asymmetries, entropy, and QM's nonlocality and entanglement, as well as reality's probabilistic nature. The fourth dimension is inherently nonlocal via its invariant expansion, which is the source of nonlocality as well as relativity. All of this is more fully developed in Dr. E's 2008 paper on M, which examines Einstein's 1912 Manuscript on Relativity and derives relativity from MDT's dx4/dt=ic: Time as an Emergent Phenomenom: fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/238. Simple, logical proofs of MDT: MDT PROOF#1: Relativity tells us that a timeless, ageless photon remains in one place in the fourth dimension. Quantum mechanics tells us that a photon propagates as a spherically-symmetric expanding wavefront at the velocity of c. Ergo, the fourth dimension must be expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions at the rate of c, in a spherically-symmetric manner. The expansion of the fourth dimension is the source of nonlocality, entanglement, time and all its arrows and asymmetries, c, relativity, entropy, free will, and all motion, change, and measurement, for no measurement can be made without change. For the first time in the history of relativity, change has been wedded to the fundamental fabric of spacetime in MDT. MDT PROOF#2: Einstein (1912 Man. on Rel.) and Minkowski wrote x4=ict. Ergo dx4/dt=ic. MDT PROOF#3: The only way to stay stationary in the three spatial dimensions is to move at c through the fourth dimension. The only way to stay stationary in the fourth dimension is to move at c through the three spatial dimensions. Ergo the fourth dimension is moving at c relative to the three spatial dimensions. MDT twitter proof (limited to 140 characters): SR: photon is stationary in 4th dimension. QM: photon is probability wave expanding @ c. Ergo: 4th dimension expands @ c & MDT: dx4/dt=ic “from http://twitter.com/45surf When the Great Wheeler sadly passed away a few years ago, Colby Cosh saluted him in the National Post with, "At 96, he had been the last notable figure from the heroic age of physics lingering among us. . . the student of Bohr, teacher of Feynman, and close colleague of Einstein. . . Wheeler was as much philosopher-poet as scientist, seizing on Einsteinian relativity early . . . He was ready to believe in the new world before most physicists. . ." J.A. Wheeler, Princeton's Joseph Henry Professor of Physics, wrote these kind words which I shall be forever thankful for, and which, as a recommendation for grad school, lead to my artificial retina Ph.D. dissertation project, which is now helping the blind see: "More intellectual curiosity, versatility and yen for physics than Elliot McGucken's I have never seen in any senior or graduate student. . . Originality, powerful motivation, and a can-do spirit make me think that McGucken is a top bet for graduate school in physics. . . I say this on the basis of close contacts with him over the past year and a half. . . I gave him as an independent task to figure out the time factor in the standard Schwarzchild expression around a spherically-symmetric center of attraction. I gave him the proofs of my new general-audience, calculus-free book on general relativity, A Odyssey Into Gravity and Space Time. There the space part of the Schwarzchild geometric is worked out by purely geometric methods. "Can you, by poor-man's reasoning, derive what I never have, the time part?" He could and did, and wrote it all up in a beautifully clear account. . . .his second junior paper . . . entitled Within a Context, was done with another advisor, and dealt with an entirely different part of physics, the Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky experiment and delayed choice experiments in general. . . this paper was so outstanding. . . I am absolutely delighted that this semester McGucken is doing a project with the cyclotron group on time reversal asymmetry. Electronics, machine-shop work and making equipment function are things in which he now revels. But he revels in Shakespeare, too. Acting the part of Prospero in The Tempest. . ." The Wall Street Journal reported: "After winning (the Merrill Lynch Innovations Grant Contest for his physics Ph.D.), he got to tour The New York Stock Exchange. Dr. McGucken caught the entrepreneurial bug. Eventually, he launched an internet company devoted to his longtime passions: writing and classical literature. . .The Web site is filled with Dr. McGucken's poetry and commentary and discussion groups on classic literature. "It's all written in a classical context with a Generation X attitude," he says. He sells ads to online vendors in fields ranging from life insurance to pantyhose and has a deal with Amazon.com that gives him a cut of sales generated by his site. . . HE HAS RESISTED the siren call of big business, although he has talked to venture capitalists and he almost sold out to a larger company before that company was taken over. Dr. McGucken wouldn't mind being part of a larger site, but he doesn't want to be a larger company. "If I was to try to squeeze huge profits out of it to please venture capitalists, it would ruin the spirit of it," he says. . . " --The Wall Street Journal The NCSU Engineering department reported, "NC State University and Dr. Elliot McGucken, assistant professor of physics at Elon College and post-doctoral research assistant in the College of Engineering at NC State, have received grants as part of the Merrill Lynch Forum¤s Innovation Grants Competition. Open to doctoral degree recipients, the international awards recognize innovative research that has commercial applications. McGucken, who entered his dissertation on developing an artificial retina system that combines microchips, miniature cameras and tiny electrodes, was selected as one of two second place winners from the competition field of 213 entries from 16 countries. The second place entries receive a $20,000 grant, and the university affiliated with the research receives a $5,000 incentive grant from Merrill Lynch. McGucken's research, conducted with Dr. Wentai Liu, professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State University, involves the development of a microchip that can be implanted into the eye to restore limited visibility to patients with retinal degeneration. Estimations are that, once the device is tested and made available to the public, it could restore limited sight to more than 10,000,000 people. McGucken received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The foundational equation of award-winning Ph.D. physicists Dr. E's Moving Dimensions Theory dx4/dt=ic appears on all the 45surf clothing.

The above painting is Rembrandt's "Aristotle contemplating the bust of Homer," and the book tells the story of Dr. E's dx4/dt=ic, tracing the modern physics equation on back through the heroic odysseys of Einstein, to Maxwell and Farady, to Newton, to Galileo, to Copernicus, to Aristotle's "Natural Philosophy," to Socrates' trial whence he refused to rescind his teaching, "Virtue does not come from money, but money and every lasting good of man derives from virtue," citing the courage of Achilles in Homer's Iliad. And so it is that the history of modern science and technology, from Dr E's Moving Dimensions Theory and NSF-funded, award-winning physics Ph.D. dissertation which is now helping the blind see are traced along an odyssey leadig back to the very first word of Homer's Iliad--RAGE--the divine RAGE of Achilles which drove him to Speak Truth to Power, thusly fostering the scientific spirit which, the great physicist Feynman reminds us, is all about learning to "quetsion the experts." "Amicus Plato" amicus Aristoteles" magis a veritas," wrote Sir Isaac Newton which means, "Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but my greatest friend is Truth." This was likely inspired by Aritsotle's statement in the Nicomachean Ethis, "Where both are friends, it is right to prefer truth." Nor is Dr. E alone in perceiving the deep connection between science and Epic Poetry, for Goethe wrote, "Science arose from poetry--when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends." Just as Aristotle noted that character was defined by virtuous action, so too did Eisntein note that science was advanced primarily by character, writing, "Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character." In saltuting the great Copernicus, Einstein saluted not only his scientific work, but the "greatness of his personality"--his character. Once it was recognised that the earth was not the center of the world, but only one of the smaller planets, the illusion of the central significance of man himself became untenable. Hence, Nicolaus Copernicus, through his work and the greatness of his personality, taught man to be honest. (Albert Einstein, Message on the 410th Anniversary of the Death of Copernicus, 1953) MDT provides both the "elementary foundations" of relativity that Einstein yet sought, and the foundational physical reality underlying and causing quantum nonlocality and entanglement, which  Schrodinger labeled th "characteristic trait" of QM. Einstein's Principle of Relativity, as well as his two postulates, derive from MDT's simple physical model (Fig. 1) and single postulate which is more concise and has the added benefits of providing for free will, liberating us from the block universe, weaving change into the fundamental fabric of space-time for the first time in the history of relativity, and providing an elementary, foundational physical model for time and all its arrows and asymmetries, entropy, and QM's nonlocality and entanglement, as well as reality's probabilistic nature. The fourth dimension is inherently nonlocal via its invariant expansion, which is the source of nonlocality as well as relativity. All of this is more fully developed in Dr. E's 2008 paper on M, which examines Einstein's 1912 Manuscript on Relativity and derives relativity from MDT's dx4/dt=ic: Time as an Emergent Phenomenom: fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/238. Simple, logical proofs of MDT: MDT PROOF#1: Relativity tells us that a timeless, ageless photon remains in one place in the fourth dimension. Quantum mechanics tells us that a photon propagates as a spherically-symmetric expanding wavefront at the velocity of c. Ergo, the fourth dimension must be expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions at the rate of c, in a spherically-symmetric manner. The expansion of the fourth dimension is the source of nonlocality, entanglement, time and all its arrows and asymmetries, c, relativity, entropy, free will, and all motion, change, and measurement, for no measurement can be made without change. For the first time in the history of relativity, change has been wedded to the fundamental fabric of spacetime in MDT. MDT PROOF#2: Einstein (1912 Man. on Rel.) and Minkowski wrote x4=ict. Ergo dx4/dt=ic. MDT PROOF#3: The only way to stay stationary in the three spatial dimensions is to move at c through the fourth dimension. The only way to stay stationary in the fourth dimension is to move at c through the three spatial dimensions. Ergo the fourth dimension is moving at c relative to the three spatial dimensions. MDT twitter proof (limited to 140 characters): SR: photon is stationary in 4th dimension. QM: photon is probability wave expanding @ c. Ergo: 4th dimension expands @ c & MDT:  dx4/dt=ic –from http://twitter.com/45surf When the Great Wheeler sadly passed away a few years ago, Colby Cosh saluted him in the National Post with, "At 96, he had been the last notable figure from the heroic age of physics lingering among us. . . the student of Bohr, teacher of Feynman, and close colleague of Einstein. . . Wheeler was as much philosopher-poet as scientist, seizing on Einsteinian relativity early . . . He was ready to believe in the new world before most physicists. . ." J.A. Wheeler, Princeton's Joseph Henry Professor of Physics, wrote these kind words which I shall be forever thankful for, and which, as a recommendation for grad school, lead to my artificial retina Ph.D. dissertation project, which is now helping the blind see: "More intellectual curiosity, versatility and yen for physics than Elliot McGucken's I have never seen in any senior or graduate student. . . Originality, powerful motivation, and a can-do spirit make me think that McGucken is a top bet for graduate school in physics. . . I say this on the basis of close contacts with him over the past year and a half. . . I gave him as an independent task to figure out the time factor in the standard Schwarzchild expression around a spherically-symmetric center of attraction. I gave him the proofs of my new general-audience, calculus-free book on general relativity, A Odyssey Into Gravity and Space Time. There the space part of the Schwarzchild geometric is worked out by purely geometric methods. "Can you, by poor-man's reasoning, derive what I never have, the time part?" He could and did, and wrote it all up in a beautifully clear account. . . .his second junior paper . . . entitled Within a Context, was done with another advisor, and dealt with an entirely different part of physics, the Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky experiment and delayed choice experiments in general. . . this paper was so outstanding. . . I am absolutely delighted that this semester McGucken is doing a project with the cyclotron group on time reversal asymmetry. Electronics, machine-shop work and making equipment function are things in which he now revels. But he revels in Shakespeare, too. Acting the part of Prospero in The Tempest. . ." The Wall Street Journal reported: "After winning (the Merrill Lynch Innovations Grant Contest for his physics Ph.D.), he got to tour The New York Stock Exchange. Dr. McGucken caught the entrepreneurial bug. Eventually, he launched an internet company devoted to his longtime passions: writing and classical literature. . .The Web site is filled with Dr. McGucken's poetry and commentary and discussion groups on classic literature. "It's all written in a classical context with a Generation X attitude," he says. He sells ads to online vendors in fields ranging from life insurance to pantyhose and has a deal with Amazon.com that gives him a cut of sales generated by his site. . . HE HAS RESISTED the siren call of big business, although he has talked to venture capitalists and he almost sold out to a larger company before that company was taken over. Dr. McGucken wouldn't mind being part of a larger site, but he doesn't want to be a larger company. "If I was to try to squeeze huge profits out of it to please venture capitalists, it would ruin the spirit of it," he says. . . " --The Wall Street Journal The NCSU Engineering department reported, "NC State University and Dr. Elliot McGucken, assistant professor of physics at Elon College and post-doctoral research assistant in the College of Engineering at NC State, have received grants as part of the Merrill Lynch Forum's Innovation Grants Competition. Open to doctoral degree recipients, the international awards recognize innovative research that has commercial applications. McGucken, who entered his dissertation on developing an artificial retina system that combines microchips, miniature cameras and tiny electrodes, was selected as one of two second place winners from the competition field of 213 entries from 16 countries. The second place entries receive a $20,000 grant, and the university affiliated with the research receives a $5,000 incentive grant from Merrill Lynch. McGucken's research, conducted with Dr. Wentai Liu, professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State University, involves the development of a microchip that can be implanted into the eye to restore limited visibility to patients with retinal degeneration. Estimations are that, once the device is tested and made available to the public, it could restore limited sight to more than 10,000,000 people. McGucken received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Moving Dimensions Theory: Time as an Emergent Phenomenon: Traveling Back to the Heroic Age of Physics by Elliot McGucken Essay Abstract In his 1912 Manuscript on Relativity, Einstein never stated that time is the fourth dimension, but rather he wrote x4 = ict. The fourth dimension is not time, but ict. Despite this, prominent physicists have oft equated time and the fourth dimension, leading to un-resolvable paradoxes and confusion regarding time’s physical nature, as physicists mistakenly projected properties of the three spatial dimensions onto a time dimension, resulting in curious concepts including frozen time and block universes in which the past and future are omni-present, thusly denying free will, while implying the possibility of time travel into the past, which visitors from the future have yet to verify. Beginning with the postulate that time is an emergent phenomenon resulting from a fourth dimension expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions at the rate of c, diverse phenomena from relativity, quantum mechanics, and statistical mechanics are accounted for. Time dilation, the equivalence of mass and energy, nonlocality, wave-particle duality, and entropy are shown to arise from a common, deeper physical reality expressed with dx4/dt=ic. This postulate and equation, from which Einstein’s relativity is derived, presents a fundamental model accounting for the emergence of time, the constant velocity of light, the fact that the maximum velocity is c, and the fact that c is independent of the velocity of the source, as photons are but matter surfing a fourth expanding dimension. In general relativity, Einstein showed that the dimensions themselves could bend, curve, and move. The present theory extends this principle, postulating that the fourth dimension is moving independently of the three spatial dimensions, distributing locality and fathering time. This physical model underlies and accounts for time in quantum mechanics, relativity, and statistical mechanics, as well as entropy, the universe’s expansion, and time’s arrows. Author Bio “Dr. E” received a B.A. in physics from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in physics from UNC Chapel Hill, where his NSF-funded research on an artificial retina, which is now helping the blind see, appeared in Business Week and Popular Science alongside numerous academic journals and was awarded a Merrill Lynch Innovations Grant. While at Princeton, McGucken worked on projects concerning quantum mechanics and general relativity with the late John Wheeler, and the projects combined to form an appendix treating time as an emergent phenomenon in his dissertation. McGucken is writing a book for the Artistic Entrepreneurship & Technology (artsentrepreneurship.com) curriculum he created.

John Milton's Paradise Lost OF Man's First Disobedience, and the Fruit Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast Brought Death into the World, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat, [ 5 ] Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed, In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth Rose out of Chaos: Or if Sion Hill [ 10 ] Delight thee more, and Siloa's Brook that flow'd Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song, That with no middle flight intends to soar Above th' Aonian Mount, while it pursues [ 15 ] Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime.

45SURF Beach Reading 1. Homer's Iliad 2. Homer's Odyssey 3. Exodus 4. Virgil's Aeneid 5. Socrates' Apology 6. The Book of Matthew 7. Plato's Repulic 8. Dante's Inferno 9. The Declaration of Independence 10. The Constitution 11. John Milton's Paradise Lost 12. Shakespeare's Hamlet 13. Newton's Principia 14. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and Theory of Moral Sentiments 15. The Stoics--Zeno, Diogenes, Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelis 16. Ludwig von Mises' A Theory of Money and Credit 17. F.A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom 18. Herman Melville's Moby Dick 19. Einstein's The Meaning of Relativity

Virgil's Aeneid Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto vi superum saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram; multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem, 5 inferretque deos Latio, genus unde Latinum, Albanique patres, atque altae moenia Romae. Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso, quidve dolens, regina deum tot volvere casus insignem pietate virum, tot adire labores 10 impulerit. Tantaene animis caelestibus irae?

Congrats to Aussie Joel "Parko" Parkinson on winning the 2012 World Surfing Title!
(shown here returning from outer space: Nikon D4 + Nikkor 600 mm F4 prime lens)

"IF is a short, yet epic, poem exalting the Stoic, Heroic temperament, from Achilles, to Socrates, to Seneca on down." --Dr. E If— BY RUDYARD KIPLING (‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies) If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

The legendary, all-time-great, 11-time-world-champ KE11Y SL8R! Nikon D4 + Nikkor 600 mm F4 Prime
Kelly Slater launches a rare "rodeo clown aerial" at the Hurley Pro at Trestles.


Dr. E signs all his fine art with dx4/dt=ic.

. . . Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. --ULYSSES

JOHNNY RANGER MCCOY'S WORLD-FAMOUS HERO'S ODYSSEY MYTHOLOGY LANDSCAPES, SURFERS, & GODDESSES










Venice at dusk

Some of the gear used along my odyssey on towards 45SURF & Hero's Odyssey Mythology Photography

Surfers and cowboys are classic American archetypes. While one goes with the flow, the other rides against the wind, and hence the 45SURF trademark--the old Colt .45 Revolver from Sergio Leone's/Clint Eastwood's Fistful of Dollars on a Surfboard--is a modern yin-yang symbol. The cowboy and surfer archetypes swirl into one-another throughout 45SURF, for at the end of the day, both are "Dudes."

THE LEGEND: 11-time world surfing champion Kelly Slater!
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 600 mm F4 Prime

Herman Melville's Moby Dick Chapter I LOOMINGS Call me Ishmael. Some years ago -- never mind how long precisely -- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off -- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

Homer's Iliad Achilles’ wrath, to Greece the direful spring Of woes unnumber’d, heavenly goddess, sing! That wrath which hurl’d to Pluto’s gloomy reign The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain; Whose limbs unburied on the naked shore, Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore.1 Since great Achilles and Atrides strove, Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove!2 Declare, O Muse! in what ill-fated hour3 Sprung the fierce strife, from what offended power Latona’s son a dire contagion spread,4 And heap’d the camp with mountains of the dead; The king of men his reverent priest defied,5 And for the king’s offence the people died. --translated by Alexander Pope Homer's Odyssey The man for wisdom’s various arts renown’d, Long exercised in woes, O Muse! resound; Who, when his arms had wrought the destined fall Of sacred Troy, and razed her heaven-built wall, Wandering from clime to clime, observant stray’d, Their manners noted, and their states survey’d, On stormy seas unnumber’d toils he bore, Safe with his friends to gain his natal shore: Vain toils! their impious folly dared to prey On herds devoted to the god of day; The god vindictive doom’d them never more (Ah, men unbless’d!) to touch that natal shore. Oh, snatch some portion of these acts from fate, Celestial Muse! and to our world relate. --translated by Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope on Homer's Iliad & Odyssey: Our author’s work is a wild paradise, where, if we cannot see all the beauties so distinctly as in an ordered garden, it is only because the number of them is infinitely greater. It is like a copious nursery, which contains the seeds and first productions of every kind, out of which those who followed him have but selected some particular plants, each according to his fancy, to cultivate and beautify. If some things are too luxuriant it is owing to the richness of the soil; and if others are not arrived to perfection or maturity, it is only because they are overrun and oppressed by those of a stronger nature." Alexander Pope on Homer's Iliad & Odyssey, 1727.

Self-portraits of the photographer Johnny Ranger McCoy (Dr. Elliot McGucken)

She Walks in Beauty BY LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON) She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes; Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies. One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o’er her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express, How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. And on that cheek, and o’er that brow, So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow, But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent!

Johnny Ranger McCoy's (Dr. E's) innovative photography & videography techniques in Resource Magazine.

Dante's Divine Comedy translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Inferno: Canto I Midway upon the odyssey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost. Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say What was this forest savage, rough, and stern, Which in the very thought renews the fear. So bitter is it, death is little more; But of the good to treat, which there I found, Speak will I of the other things I saw there. I cannot well repeat how there I entered, So full was I of slumber at the moment In which I had abandoned the true way. But after I had reached a mountain's foot, At that point where the valley terminated, Which had with consternation pierced my heart, Upward I looked, and I beheld its shoulders, Vested already with that planet's rays Which leadeth others right by every road. Then was the fear a little quieted That in my heart's lake had endured throughout The night, which I had passed so piteously. And even as he, who, with distressful breath, Forth issued from the sea upon the shore, Turns to the water perilous and gazes; So did my soul, that still was fleeing onward, Turn itself back to re-behold the pass Which never yet a living person left. After my weary body I had rested, The way resumed I on the desert slope, So that the firm foot ever was the lower. And lo! almost where the ascent began, A panther light and swift exceedingly, Which with a spotted skin was covered o'er! And never moved she from before my face, Nay, rather did impede so much my way, That many times I to return had turned. The time was the beginning of the morning, And up the sun was mounting with those stars That with him were, what time the Love Divine At first in motion set those beauteous things; So were to me occasion of good hope, The variegated skin of that wild beast, The hour of time, and the delicious season; But not so much, that did not give me fear A lion's aspect which appeared to me. He seemed as if against me he were coming With head uplifted, and with ravenous hunger, So that it seemed the air was afraid of him; And a she-wolf, that with all hungerings Seemed to be laden in her meagreness, And many folk has caused to live forlorn! She brought upon me so much heaviness, With the affright that from her aspect came, That I the hope relinquished of the height. And as he is who willingly acquires, And the time comes that causes him to lose, Who weeps in all his thoughts and is despondent, E'en such made me that beast withouten peace, Which, coming on against me by degrees Thrust me back thither where the sun is silent. While I was rushing downward to the lowland, Before mine eyes did one present himself, Who seemed from long-continued silence hoarse. When I beheld him in the desert vast, "Have pity on me," unto him I cried, "Whiche'er thou art, or shade or real man!" He answered me: "Not man; man once I was, And both my parents were of Lombardy, And Mantuans by country both of them. 'Sub Julio' was I born, though it was late, And lived at Rome under the good Augustus, During the time of false and lying gods. A poet was I, and I sang that just Son of Anchises, who came forth from Troy, After that Ilion the superb was burned. But thou, why goest thou back to such annoyance? Why climb'st thou not the Mount Delectable, Which is the source and cause of every joy?" "Now, art thou that Virgilius and that fountain Which spreads abroad so wide a river of speech?" I made response to him with bashful forehead. "O, of the other poets honour and light, Avail me the long study and great love That have impelled me to explore thy volume! Thou art my master, and my author thou, Thou art alone the one from whom I took The beautiful style that has done honour to me. Behold the beast, for which I have turned back; Do thou protect me from her, famous Sage, For she doth make my veins and pulses tremble." "Thee it behoves to take another road," Responded he, when he beheld me weeping, "If from this savage place thou wouldst escape; Because this beast, at which thou criest out, Suffers not any one to pass her way, But so doth harass him, that she destroys him; And has a nature so malign and ruthless, That never doth she glut her greedy will, And after food is hungrier than before. Many the animals with whom she weds, And more they shall be still, until the Greyhound Comes, who shall make her perish in her pain. He shall not feed on either earth or pelf, But upon wisdom, and on love and virtue; 'Twixt Feltro and Feltro shall his nation be; Of that low Italy shall he be the saviour, On whose account the maid Camilla died, Euryalus, Turnus, Nisus, of their wounds; Through every city shall he hunt her down, Until he shall have driven her back to Hell, There from whence envy first did let her loose. Therefore I think and judge it for thy best Thou follow me, and I will be thy guide, And lead thee hence through the eternal place, Where thou shalt hear the desperate lamentations, Shalt see the ancient spirits disconsolate, Who cry out each one for the second death; And thou shalt see those who contented are Within the fire, because they hope to come, Whene'er it may be, to the blessed people; To whom, then, if thou wishest to ascend, A soul shall be for that than I more worthy; With her at my departure I will leave thee; Because that Emperor, who reigns above, In that I was rebellious to his law, Wills that through me none come into his city. He governs everywhere, and there he reigns; There is his city and his lofty throne; O happy he whom thereto he elects!" And I to him: "Poet, I thee entreat, By that same God whom thou didst never know, So that I may escape this woe and worse, Thou wouldst conduct me there where thou hast said, That I may see the portal of Saint Peter, And those thou makest so disconsolate." Then he moved on, and I behind him followed.

Dr. E's photo was used as a book cover by Elmore Leonard--a bestselling author of Westerns.












THE LEGEND: 11-time world surfing champion Kelly Slater!
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 600 mm F4 Prime

GHOST OF NAVAJO WILD MUSTANG Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Photograhy Upper Antelope Canyon, AZ Fuji-crystal metallic archival paper front-mounted to acrylic. All sizes/formats in catalog. The Navajos considered the Slot Canyons to be sacred grounds, and witnessing the most unique, tranquil beauty of the natural temple carved in the red and orange sandstone by centuries of flash floods, it is easy to understand why. As the Navajo guide drove us across the Arizona desert sand in his 4-wheel-drive Jeep, he lamented that horses were disappearing from the reservation as more and more of the youngsters were opting for ATVs and motorcycles instead. As he lead us on through the Upper Antelope Canyons, ghosts magically appeared as the wind whipped the dusty desert sands across shafts of sunlight streaming down into the canyons. When I returned home, I was most surprised to find that my Nikon D800E had magically caught the ghost of a Mustang rearing up on its hind legs, standing over fifteen-feet tall, as the forces of nature exalted the archetypal form of the North American wild horse—the Mustang—letting us know the eternal spirit yet looms larger than our temporal, fleeting reality. One could only conclude that the spirit of the Mustang yet rules these lands, for there were no ghosts of ATVs no motorcycles to be seen. The Mustang, in addition to being the car I drive, is the free-roaming “wild horse” of the American West. The United States Congress recognized Mustangs as "living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West, which continue to contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people."

RAGE OF ACHILLES OVER RIVER STYX 14-24mm F/2.8 lens 7 exposures @ 1 EV. Metallic paper front- mounted to acrylic. All sizes/formats in catalog.. Nikon D800E Malibu, CA The word “rage” is the very first word of Homer’s Iliad, and thus it opens all of epic poetry—from the Aeneid, to Paradise Lost, to Dante’s Inferno, on down. The great Achilles quits the Greek army in a fit of rage as his commander pulls rank on him and robs him of his honor, seizing his prize. When the Greeks begin to lose, the commander offers Achilles 100x the prizes he seized to return, but Achilles is a man who cannot be bought. Achilles does ultimately return to battle, in an even greater fit of rage, to avenge the death of a friend, though he knows he will die. The father of Philosophy Socrates’ would reference Achilles’ honor at his own trial, also choosing death over dishonor. Achilles’ rage is but the spearhead and manifestation of that classic, epic honor at the seat of the soul and at the center and circumference of Homer’s epic poems—a rage for honor which Achilles lived and died for, and which gave birth to philosophy and thus science. The great director Martin Scorcese recently stated in Fast Company, “I'm concerned about a culture where everything is immediate and then discarded. I just read (my 12-year-old daughter Francesca) a children's version of The Iliad. I wanted her to know where it all comes from. Every story, I told her, every story is in here, The Iliad.” The great director Sergio Leone, who chiseled the young Clint Eastwood into an international star in A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly stated, “The greatest scriptwriter of Westerns was Homer. The Archetypes of yesterday’s cowboys were Achilles, Ajax, Agamemnon, and Hector.” And so it is no great wonder that we yet might glimpse the Rage of Achilles thousands of miles and years later in Malibu, as a testament to the classical spirit.

World Title Runner-Up Aussie Sally Fitzgibbons

Johnny Ranger McCoy's (Dr. E's) innovative photography and videography techniques in Resource Magazine.


THE LEGENDARY 11-time World Champion Kelly Slater!
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 600 mm F4 Prime




Pro surf girl Aussie Sally Fitzgibbons. World title runner-up!

Virgil's Aeneid Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto vi superum saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram; multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem, inferretque deos Latio, genus unde Latinum, Albanique patres, atque altae moenia Romae. Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso, quidve dolens, regina deum tot volvere casus insignem pietate virum, tot adire labores impulerit. Tantaene animis caelestibus irae?

The Malibu Canyons after the rain






The Malibu Canyons: Discover Los Angeles Photo of the Day














El Matador Beach in Malibu @ Dusk








Rising pro star Lakey Peterson during her record 19.76 heat at the Nike US Open!
Lakey won the event! All the best on your quest for the world title Lakey!

HOMER'S ODYSSEY The Man, O Muse, informe that many a way Wound with his wisedome to his wished stay; That wanderd wondrous farre when He the towne Of sacred Troy had sackt and shiverd downe. The cities of a world of nations, With all their manners, mindes and fashions, He saw and knew; at Sea felt many woes, Much care sustaind, to save from overthrowes Himselfe and friends in their retreate for home. --translated by George Chapman Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all these things, O daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them. So now all who escaped death in battle or by shipwreck had got safely home except Ulysses, and he, though he was longing to return to his wife and country, was detained by the goddess Calypso, who had got him into a large cave and wanted to marry him. But as years went by, there came a time when the gods settled that he should go back to Ithaca; even then, however, when he was among his own people, his troubles were not yet over; nevertheless all the gods had now begun to pity him except Neptune, who still persecuted him without ceasing and would not let him get home. --Translated by Samuel Butler

. . . Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. --ULYSSES

"Achilles' baneful wrath resound, O Goddesse."--Homer's Iliad, translated by George Chapman
45SURF Hero's Odyssey Mythology Facebook 1! 45SURF Hero's Odyssey Mythology Facebook 2!
It's cool to surf, but sometimes you've got to cowboy.^TM -- 45SURF^(R)
Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito. --Virgil












The Malibu Canyons after the rain.



Dr. E's video of ten-time World Surfing Champion Kelly Slater winning the US Open.

Arts Entrepreneurship & Business Hero's Odyssey Entrepreneurship & Business

Virtus, Honoris, et Actio proVeritas, Amor, et Bellus--XLVSURF
Strength, Honor, and Action, for Truth, Love, and Beauty--45SURF^(R)
Virtue does not come from money, but money and all lasting riches derive form virtue. --Socrates

The art of photography is about angling for the classic beauty and rendering its ideal real--capturing the epic "arete" that has inspired from the dawn of time, all the while knowing that Melville's "ungraspable phantom of life" will yet swim free, inspiring the next shoot. --Dr. E To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour. --William Blake

buy 45SURFTM GEAR @ THE 45SURFCOWBOY store NEW! THE MALIBU MOON! 45SURF on twitter 45SURF on myspace 45SURF on facebook del.icio.us | Digg it StumbleUpon| Fark It Enjoy the classical, heroic spirit that pervades the 45SURF photography & philosophy! Meet the photographer.

A picture's worth a thousand words, and those words ought tell beauty's classic, epic story. --Dr. E The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; and as imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown, the poet's pen turns them into shape, and gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name. --Shakespeare

[malibu canyon photography] [45surf slideshow]
The Man With No Name Rides Again

While the fleet of foot Achilles was drawing his great sword from his sheath, the Goddess Athene came to him from heaven, sent forth of the white-armed goddess Hera, whose heart loved both alike and had care for them. --Homer's Iliad

CARPE DIEM: SEIZE THE DAY!!
Dimidium facti qui coepit habet. - He who has begun has the work half done.
Est modus in rebus. - There is a medium in things.
Non omnis moriar. - Not all of me will die.
Ridentem dicere verum quid vetat? - What prevents me from speaking the truth with a smile?
Sedit qui timuit ne non succederet. - He who feared he would not succeed sat still.
Vitanda est improba siren desidia. - One must avoid that wicked temptress, laziness.
Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem. - Remember when life's path is steep to keep your mind even.
Vitiis nemo sine nascitur. - No one is born without faults.
--HORACE

  Nil sine magno vita labore dedit mortalibus.
          o Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work.
          o Book I, satire ix, line 59
                         --HORACE

   ...loquimur, fugerit invida aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum 
credula postero.
          o As we speak cruel time is fleeing. Seize the day, believing 
as little as possible in the morrow.
          o Book I, ode xi, line 8
                         --HORACE

How would you like to stand like a God before the crest of a monster billow, always rushing to the bottom of a hill and never reaching its base, and to come rushing in for a half mile at express speed, in graceful attitude, until you reach the beach and step easily from the wave? -- Duke Kahanamoku A man ought to do what he thinks is right. If everything isn't black and white, I say, 'Why the hell not?' -- John "The Duke" Wayne

Caeca invidia est. - Envy is blind.
Periculum in mora. - There is danger in delay.
Potius sero quam numquam. - It is better to be late than never.
Vae victis! - Woe to the conquered!
--Livy

Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology Hero's Odyssey Entrepreneurship Mythology

Caught in the breakers, in the air I fly, Towards wild white surf kissing shimmering sand. Wind snaps the sail taught, the waves I defy, Yet I'm drawn towards the line where water meets land, For we only know one by the other, The black words defined by the white borders, As indifferent nature is man's mother, Chaos emboldens the rarer order. And out on that board I feel so alone, In the blue, greeted by but reflection, It's by nature our uniqueness is known, Fleeting beauty caught by time's direction.       Words are but the immortal part of me,       Struggling from the fleeting thought to break free.             --Dr. E aka The Photographer With No Name

World Champ Joel Parkinson Returning from Outer Space







Wide-angle Nikon D800E HDR shot from sea cave @ Malibu's El Mataodr Beach at low tide.


Finis coronat opus. - The ending crowns the work.
Gutta cavat lapidem, non vi, sed saepe cadendo. - A drop of water hollows a stone, not by force, but by continuously dripping.
Medio tutissimus ibis. - You will go safest in the middle.
Nemo ante mortem beatus. - No one is happy before one's death.
Omnia iam fient fieri quae posse negabam. - All the things which I denied could happen are now happening.
Omnia mutantur; nihil interit. - All things are changed; nothing dies.
Perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim. - Be patient and tough; some day this pain will be useful to you.
Qui non est hodie cras minus aptus erit. - He who is not prepared today will be less prepared tomorrow.
Rident stolidi verba Latina. - Fools laugh at the Latin language.
Saepe creat molles aspera spina rosas. - Often a wild thorn produces tender roses.
Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis. - Times are changing and we are changing with them.
--OVID


The Thrill of Victory: Lakey Wins the US Open! Go Lakey! Get that World Surfing Title!











All the best on your Hero's Odyssey from Johnny Ranger McCoy and the beautiful 45SURF Hero's Odyssey Mythology Goddesses!




The PCH at dusk.
4 5 S U R F . H E R O ' S . O D Y S S E Y . M Y T H O L O G Y . P H O T O G R A P H Y
by J O H N N Y . R A N G E R . M C C O Y

45SURF Hero's Odyssey Gear for your Epic Adventure.

The Epic Nikon D850!

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