Printer-friendly versionSend to friend

Welcome Adventurer!

The LYM "Basement Team"--a small group of researchers operating from the basement of a farm in Northern Virginia--presents a preliminary report.

You have now arrived at the threshold of the third stage of an ongoing investigation, commissioned by economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche, and conducted by teams from the LaRouche Youth Movement (LYM), into the most crucial breakthroughs made in scientific method. If you have not already reviewed and/or worked through the first two
phases of the project, namely, an interactive pedagogy covering Johannes Kepler's investigation of the principle which governs the motion of heavenly bodies in his Astronomia Nova (New Astronomy), and secondly, a similar exposition of Kepler's other main work developing the universal quality of this principle in his Harmonices Mundi (The Harmony of the World), it is necessary that you do so, in order to situate the contents of the following report. (www.wlym.com/~animations)

In a time-period reminiscent of the extended moment
of ambiguity felt when watching a coin spinning across a
surface and wondering how it will fall, the significance
and sheer necessity of this scientific and epistemological
undertaking is hopefully not lost upon the reader: U.S.
"defense" systems are at this moment pointed at Russia
and China, the President of Vice continues to rabidly
press for war in Iran, and the present world financial
architecture creaks and groans underneath a monstrous
weight of speculation. On the other hand, conferences are
being held around the world on the subject of national and
international breakthrough infrastructure project
proposals, such as the April 24 Moscow conference to
deliberate over the Bering Strait tunnel project. Thus, we
are not left to merely wonder, "heads, or tails?", but
rather, are beings of free will, capable of ourselves
determining the tide of times.

That is the intention of the third team embarking
upon the third phase of the LYM's investigation: a leap
from the discoveries of Johannes Kepler, across a chasm of
nearly two centuries, to Carl F. Gauss's determination of
the orbit of Ceres, the first asteroid ever sighted by
man. The challenge posed to this team, is to recreate the
method applied by Gauss in order to achieve this feat,
which contrasted with the utterly erroneous attempts of
the narrow-minded empirical thinking of his contemporary
mathematicians and astronomers, and which leads to the
foundations of all competent modern scientific method,
including economic forecasting. The first dilemma
encountered was Gauss's own explicit obfuscation of his
method. Thus, over the course of our recent-months'
investigations, we have set about our mission on several
fronts: building up a grounding in the aforementioned
works of Kepler, as well as his predecessor, Nicholas of
Cusa; digging up the history and battle of ideas developed
in the intervening period of Kepler to Gauss, especially
one of the key minds of the 18th Century and
teacher of Gauss, Abraham Gotthelf Kaestner. The fruits
of our labor thus far are here presented to the reader
with the intention of providing an interim report of our
work, which will hopefully serve to whet the appetites of
some, and stave off the hungry appetites of others, until
we produce the final report.

Let it be said, in conclusion, that the significance
of this work for the immediate and extended future of
mankind is evidenced by the current state of our national
economy, as reflected by our space program. From man's
first strides on the Moon in 1969, a great leap backwards
has been made in not only the physical capability of our
space program, but also in the scientific-cognitive
capability to put it to good use. Indicative of this is
the fact that on July 7, the Dawn Mission, a NASA/JPL
project, will be launched, heading for Vesta, and then
Ceres--the two largest asteroids found in the asteroid
belt. Soon, a vast amount of information will be available
concerning their water and mineral content, and the nature
of the formation of the asteroids in general. However,
without the method of discovery and knowledge of principle
yielded by the investigations of the LYM into the roots of
scientific method, all of the data, photographs, and
statistics in the world will not produce the discoveries
which are required for the furtherance of our current
civilization, or of mankind as a whole.

Happy Adventuring!

--The Current "Basement" Team