From: abian@iastate.edu (Alexander Abian)
Subject: TIME HAS INERTIA AND THE PRINCIPLE OF TENDENCY OF MAINTAINING THE
         STATUS QUO AND REACTION TO PROVOCATION     answer to: M.E. Ichiriu
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 19:42:04 GMT

   I said and repeat that I will accept THE PRINCIPLE: 

         THE  TENDENCY OF MAINTAINING THE STATUS QUO AND
                     REACTION TO PROVOCATION

as one of the most fundamental principles of Physics, Chemistry, Biology,
Sociology, Psychology, and all the other aspects of Human behavior and ac-
tivities, be it personal, social, political, scientific, etc.
   
   In your counterexamples you did not pursue my Principle far enough.
   
I said very often the status quo is not maintained and is compro-
mised and as a result another status quo is created which again has the
tendency of maintaining itself until it is again compromised , and so
on.
  Yes, the mass at height  h  wants to stay there, however the gravita-
tional force of the Earth overpowers and forces it to  height  h' < h.
  Yes,  H2  and O  want to preserve their status quo but are overpowered
to  form  HOH and then try to maintain the new status quo.                  
        
    There is always a reaction and resistance to the change of the status 
quo or even to the PROVOCATION of changing the status quo.
  Sometimes the reaction is so violent that it ends up in disaster both
for the subject and the provoker and new status quo is formed.
  
  The striking of a match creates an unpleasant friction for the 
chemical at the top of the match and in order to stop that irritation
(and maintain the calm status quo) flame is produced.  You strike the
gunpowder, you provoke it, it reacts by exploding to stop the provocation. 
 You will notice that the mechanism of atomic or hydrogen bomb  is pre-
cisely to provoke (by striking very severely) an unstable material and
 the latter reacts by exploding to stop the provocation.  Just
like a human being who is bugged or provoked  may react sometimes
extremely violently , because his calm status quo is disturbed and his
reaction is precisely his tendency to maintain his calm status quo. By
that reaction sometimes he even destroys himself and the provoker.
   
    In no Physics book there is a convincing explanation  of why heat is
produced when a pair of fingers rub a piece of fur.  I know all the
 nonconvincing thermodynamical explanations - changing the levels of 
energy,etc, etc.  I say that the fur produces heat in order to burn the
fingers so that they stop bugging and rubbing it.  Of course  this is
the  major way of producing heat from time immemorial  when one piece of 
wood rubs and bugs the other and heat and flame are produced to burn 
the bugger and a new status quo is produced.
   
    Finally, I take you as an example.  In your answer, you make all the
 efforts to maintain the status quo of your beliefs and the theories that
 you were indoctrinated with.  This is quite natural, and indeed this is
how everybody and everything  acts until by brutal force or by force of
a stronger persuasion one changes the status quo of his beliefs and
forms a new status quo of beliefs.  Right now I am doing the same thing.
I am exhibiting the tendency of maintaining the status quo of my beliefs.
 
   At the end of your article you made some personal innuandoes.  My
answer to you is: "the feeling is mutual".
                                              Alexander ABIAN