The
New York Times: McGucken's course (The Hero's Journey in Arts
Entrepreneurship &
Technology) rests on the principle that those who create art
should have the skills to own it, profit from it, and protect
it. It's about how to make your
passion your profession, your avocation
your vocation, and to make this long-term sustainable...
Business Week: The classics inspired America's
Declaration
of Independence, which McGucken sees as an entrepreneurial document.
Life has a way of "calling
us to adventure. . ." McGucken points out that that one lesson
of the classics is, "Chance favors the prepared mind. Instead of
viewing risk as a bad thing, we can also view it as a good thing."
The Wall Street Journal: After winning (the Merrill Lynch
Innovations Grant Contest for an artificial retina for the blind
titled Multiple unit artificial retina chipset to aid the
visually impaired and enhanced holed-emitter CMOS phototransistors),
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. . .
 
I.D.E.A. to Exit: An Entrepreneurial Journey: Author and
Professor Elliot McGucken, Ph.D. describes
the entrepreneurial process to his arts students through an analogy to
ancient literature. He describes the first stage of the entrepreneur
and that of the classic "hero" story as a journey in which the hero, or
entrepreneur, "embarks on a quest that requires separation and
departure
from the familiar world.. . . The entrepreneur moves into the unknown
and the unproven. . ." Departure from the familiar is what keeps many
from not exploring their entrepreneurial world at all. --Jeffrey Weber:
I.D.E.A. to Exit: An Entrepreneurial Journey, p. 3, (Published
2010 by Mill City Press)
While writing the opening and closing numbers of the 100th
anniversary Triangle
Show his senior year (which had once featured F. Scott Fitzgerald and
Jimmy Stewart), Dr. E
graduated Cum Laude in physics from
Princeton University,
receiving straight A's on all his independent research ranging from
General Relativity to Quantum Mechanics to Time Reversal Asymmetry
conducted with John Archibald Wheeler and Nobel Laureate Jospeh Taylor.
Dr. E received his Masters and Ph.D. in physics from the University of North
Carolina at
Chapel Hill, where his dissertation on an artificial retina for the
blind and enhanced holed-emitter CMOS phototransistors won several Fight
for Sight
grants, NSF grants, and a Merrill
Lynch Innovations Award. Technology from the
dissertation titled
Multiple Unit Artificial Retina Chipset and Enhanced
Holed-Emitter CMOS
Phototransistors is
now helping the blind see.
Dr. E received the Bausch & Lomb Science Award and William Tenney
Scholar-Athlete Award at Firestone High, while earning seven varsity
letters on the championship swimming and tennis teams.
Alongside the money he earned while working as a tennis pro each
summer,
The Judith
Resnik
Memorial
Scholarship (given to the top science student in Akron, Ohio in honor of
astronaut Judith Resnik who passed on in the tragic Space
Shuttle Challenger
Disaster)
helped Dr. E attend Princeton
University, where he
studied
physics and creative writing, while working with the late physics great
Dr.
John
Archibald Wheeler--Princeton's Joseph Henry Professor of Physics. Dr.
Wheeler had the following to say about Dr. E: "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 Journey 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. . ." --J.A. Wheeler,
Princteon's Jospeh Henry Professor of Physics on Dr. E
Dr. E's mentor--John Archibald Wheeler (far right)--walking with
Einstein and Nobel laureate Hidekei Yukawa (center). It was
at Princeton that Dr. E's Moving Dimensions Theory was born, while
studying relativity and quantum mechanics with J.A. Wheeler,
P.J.E. Peebles, and Nobel Laureate Joseph Taylor, but it
wasn't until some years later that Dr. E arrived at MDT's fundamental
equation in California while studying Einstein's 1912 Manuscript on
Relativity: dx4/dt=ic. The equation is now on
all the
45SURF shirts and hoodies, as it represents the universe's fundamental
motion, upon
which all other waves are born. One autumn afternoon at Princeton,
Dr.
E walked into J.A. Wheeler's office on the third floor of Jadwin Hall
to
find him staring out the window at
the fall's burning leaves. Wheeler slowly turned, his fist lightly
clenched, and said, "Today we lack the Noble. . . and it's your
generation's duty to bring it on back." Wheeler had a Homeric,
Shakespearean soul--a humble, noble humanity he shared most generously
with all. As Hamlet said, "He was a
man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again." Read more here!
Dr. E setting up his Nikon D3X and 14-24 mm wide-ange 2.8 lens for
some scenic HDR sunset landscape
photography
in
Malibu, California. The Nikon captures seven photographs at varying
exposures,
which are combined in post so as to capture the full dynamic range of
the scene.
"Follow your own star!" -Dante
Dr. E (looking through binoculars) teaching astronomy. "In Science the
authority embodied in the opinion of thousands is not worth a spark of
reason in one man." -Galileo Galilei
 
Jack Bogle: Founder and Former CEO of Vanguard:
(Dr. E's) course The
Hero's Journey in Artistic
Entrepreneurship and Technology is an inspiring tribute to the
relevance
of classical ideals in our modern lives. --Jack Bogle in his book
Enough True Measures of
Business, Money, and
Life, Wiley 2008
Artistic Entrepreneurship - An Interview You Want to Make Time to
Hear.
As you know, I love my show TalkingPortraits where I get
to
interview people about all kinds of fascinating topics. . . I just
completed editing
a show with Dr. Elliot McGucken. This award-winning
physicist teaches a course called Artistic Entrepreneurship, and this
unique course is a study of Joseph Cambell's Hero's Journey applied to
an artist's quest to be not only creatively successful but financially
successful too. And to approach your success with integrity. So if
you've ever hit that wall of "how do I make money doing what I love and
do it with passion and integrity," then heed what Elliot has to say.
Re-listening to and editing this conversation has brought me new
inspiration about my life and my creative goals. This interview is
nearly an hour long, so allow yourself some time. Plop it in your iPod
or MP3 player and make the time. Trust me on this - you'll feel
transformed and uplifted all the way to the end of the talk.
http://artsentrepreneurship.com/
Best to you, my friends. Tom
Dr. E's research and patent applications on social networks,
ecommerce, and
digital rights management
for
artists, musicians, and creators are referenced in patents issued to
Google (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), IBM (IBM), Sony (SONE), Ebay
(EBAY), and other
leading
entities
in the
realm
of
digital media and social networking. Dr. E has open-sourced most of his
patent applications, giving them freely as Thomas Jefferson and
Benjamin Franklin
did
with their inventions. Thomas Jefferson wrote, "If nature has made any
one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is
the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may
exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it
is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the
receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too,
is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the
whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction
himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine,
receives light without darkening me." Benjamin Franklin wrote, "In
order of time, I should have mentioned before, that having, in 1742,
invented an open stove for the better warming of rooms, and at the same
time saving fuel, as the fresh air admitted was warmed in entering, I
made a present of the model to Mr. Robert Grace, one of my early
friends, who, having an iron-furnace, found the casting of the plates
for these stoves a profitable thing, as they were growing in demand. To
promote that demand, I wrote and published a pamphlet, entitled ."n
Account of the new-invented Pennsylvania Fireplaces; wherein their
Construction and Manner of Operation is particularly explained; their
Advantages above every other Method of warming Rooms demonstrated; and
all Objections that have been raised against the Use of them answered
and obviated," etc. This pamphlet had a good effect. Gov'r. Thomas
was
so pleas'd with the construction of this stove, as described in it, that
he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a term
of years; but I declin'd it from a principle which has ever weighed with
me on such occasions, viz., That, as we enjoy great advantages from
the
inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve
others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and
generously. "
Dr. E's research in Sensors Magazine.
Popular Science: A microchip studded with tiny sensors may
give
sight to the blind. . . Such a device must be small and have a
constant power supply. The solution: a microchip the size of
a match head, embedded with photosensors and electrodes that
translate light patterns into electrical currents to stimulate
the ganglion cells. . . Scientists Wentai Liu and Elliot McGucken are
evaluating the microchip in the lab before human testing begins. (the
retina technology is now helping people see)
Dr. E's Ph.D. dissertation was titled,
Multiple unit artificial retina chipset to aid the
visually impaired and enhanced holed-emitter CMOS
phototransistors
 
2010 Webster's Technology Quotations, Facts, and Phrases:
Artistic Entrepreneurship &
Technology 101 is an open-source course
being offered by Dr. Elliot McGucken.
Students Line Up for New Artistic Entrepreneurship Course based
on Hero's Journey Mythology:
When UNC Professor Elliot McGucken put out the call to adventure to
"make your
passion your profession" with a pilot course for artistic
entrepreneurs, students answered. More than 110 students applied for
the new course, The Hero's Journey in Arts Entrepreneurship and
Technology 101.
The course, geared towards students with an interest in the
intersection between the arts, entrepreneurial ventures and cutting-edge
technology, was originally slated for 40 spots, but the
overwhelming response triggered an increase in class size. Nearly 50
students are enrolled for the spring semester. Students from a range of
creative disciplines--from painting to film
production--will develop their artistic vision over the course of
the semester. McGucken hopes the course will both inspire artists to
pursue their creative passions and give them the practical tools
necessary to launch and develop their ventures.
"Every artist is an entrepreneur, and every entrepreneur is an
artist," explains McGucken. --Univeristy of North Carolina, Chapel
Hill
News
Dr. E's book (& Batman) at San Diego's Comic Con!
THE LINUX GAZETTE: Homer's Open Source Odyssey 2001:
Classical
Computing and a Brief History of Open Source
by Elliot McGucken
Today we are continuing along on the same open-source journey Homer set
out upon
three thousand years ago, when he shared the words of The Odyssey with
an audience
and enriched them with the knowledge of a classic's ineffable truths.
The story
was passed along from generation to generation as part of an oral
tradition for a
few hundred of years, before it was transcribed around 700 BC. The
invention of
the printing press and movable type by Gutenberg circa 1445 aided in the
sharing
of classical information, and suddenly the Bible, as well as works such
as The
Odyssey, found a far greater audience.
With the advent of the Internet the content and the audience have
augmented
vastly. And of even greater significance, with the new paradigms
afforded by
information technology, classical computing has joined the ranks of
immortal art,
science, and literature. In the past few years, we have played witness
to a
revolutionary era of humanity's cultural journey, wherein technology and
ideas
have merged in a brave new digital world, rendering knowledge as
affordable as it
is eternal.
Software is labor immortalized, as a programmer's algorithm, once
written, may
continue to function for eternity. Thus now, in addition to inheriting
the
cultural riches of our predecessors, we may also inherit the
functionality of
their programs. In a world where commerce is defined by the movement of
information, that machinery--the hardware and software--which moves the
information embodies work, and thus the innovations of one's
predecessors will not
only bestow aesthetic riches, but they shall also provide a wellspring
of eternal
labor. A hundred years from now Hamlet shall still be contemplating the
correct
course of action, and the Linux kernel, along with Apache, shall still
be
providing the fundamental labor which transports Hamlet all about the
watery
globe. . . . read
more
Dr. E interviewing renaissance men/videogame designers Flint Dille and
John Zuur Platten at the Hero's
Journey Entrepreneurship Festival. Dillios--the storytelling Spartan
in Frank Miller's graphic novel and Zack Snyder's film 300
was named
after Flint Dille. Flint & John are pioneering videogame developers,
writers, and producers, spearheading the transmedia renaissance. Check
out
their highly-rated
book--a book for
all writers--The
Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design [ULTIMATE GT VIDEO GAME
WRI -OS]
The Linux Gazzette: Dr. Elliot McGucken leads UNC Chapel
Hill's
Artistic Entrepreneurship
Initiative, where he teaches New Media Arts, Technology, and
Entrepreneurship 101.
Born in Ohio, Dr. E grew up outdoors except for when he was sitting in
front of a
computer. He received a B.A. in physics from Princeton and a Ph.D. in
physics from
UNC Chapel Hill where his dissertation on an artifical retina for the
blind received
several NSF grants and a Merrill Lynch Innovations Award. The
retina-chip research
appeared in publications including Popular Science and Business Week,
and the project
continues to this day. In 1995 Elliot founded Classicals &
jollyroger.com LLC as a
technological tribute to the Great Books, and he recently spoke at the
Harvard Law School concerning his
authena.org project for Open Source software for managing digital rights
for artists.
Elliot, known as "Dr. E" to his students, has taught physics and
programming at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and has published a poetry
book, a
novel, a collection of essays, several scientific articles, and poetry
in The Wall
Street Journal. The New York Times deemed jollyroger.com "simply
unprecedented,"
adding that the site "teems with discussion, the kind that goes well
beyond freshman
lit 101." The Los Angeles Times referred to the classical portal as "a
lavish virtual
community known as The Jolly Roger." His two latest projects,
authena.org and
22surf.org, seek to empower indy artists,
authors, musicians, and creators with Open Source Content Management
Systems. Dr. E
harbors a vast respect for the indy author and artist, for the
entrepreneur and
visionary, for the giants of yesteryear whose shoulders we all stand
upon. He hopes
that authena and 22surf might be of some use to fellow artists and
hackers alike.
His latest novel, Autumn Rangers, is being developed as a book,
screenplay,
and video
game at autumnrangers.com.
Dr. E's retina research in Business
Week
Dr. E received the Tanner Award for Excellence in Undergraduate
Teaching
at UNC Chapel Hill, as well as an honorary membership in the
American
Association of Physics Teachers.
An early version of Dr. E's set of books for
The Hero's Journey in
Arts
Entrepreneurship
&
Technology.
Courtesy of UNC's Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative
The University of Cape Town Graduate School of
Business: The art of entrepreneurship: There is an increasing
attention on the concept of artists as entrepreneurs emerging globally
-- artists are becoming more business savvy and finding new ways of
sustaining their artistic livelihood. Artists of all kinds are applying
their creativity in new ways as businesspeople, and proving that it is
possible to leave the "starving artist" notion behind in favour of the
"business savvy artist." In the US, the New York Times recently
picked up on this trend, and in a
feature presented some successful artists changing the game. According
to Elliot McGucken who teaches the course Artist Entrepreneurs at the
University of North Carolina, the advancement of business skills "rests
on the principle that those who create art should have the skills to own
it, profit from it and protect it. . . It's about how to make your
passion your profession, your avocation
your vocation, and to make this long-term sustainable," he says.
This business imperative to the world of the arts has become all the
more important in the past year, as the recession has not left the art
world unscathed . while most of the media attention is on corporates,
the plight of the arts is an important issue that needs addressing as
well.
The Graphic: Hero's Journey Entrepreneurship Festival to
Promote Business Creativity: Dr. Elliot McGucken organized the
(Hero's
Journey
Entrepreneurship Festival). McGucken
teaches a class in artistic entrepreneurship in which Jack Bogle's 2005
book,
The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism, is required reading
alongside
Homer's Odyssey. The theme of a hero's journey, therefore,
permeated Bogle's
presentation. "Classical precepts are the most useful tools throughout
life," McGucken
said. "Ideals are a great a long-term investment, because they never
change." Bogle reached out to students, urging them to pursue an
education and to
become a citizen characterized by ethics and ideals.
Dr. E setting up a photoshoot in Malibu for
45surf Hero's Journey Mythology Photography.
CharlesLaurenFilms.com: The Purpose of Myth:
It seems hard to remember, especially when people are feeling down in
times like these, but our myths aren't just there so stories can be
written using their framework and convention. They aren't there just for
entertainment and movies like Star Wars, but they exist in all of our
minds and are archetypes because we are supposed to use their ideas to
live our lives. . . . Not surprisingly, the heroes in our own world
follow the exact same chronology of life events as Frodo or Luke
Skywalker. Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Mark Cuban, my buddy Lakshmi
Mittal, just about everyone follows the same path. As I thought about
this I found a great website (Dr. E's
herosjourneyentrepreneurship.org)
which outlines the events in an entrepreneur's life and how it relates
to the ordeals that the hero must go through on his journey, which is in
Campbell's book Hero With a Thousand Faces. It was pretty cool to see
this structured and in writing! Starting a business in a recession
might be the perfect option for a lot of people. Companies aren't
expanding into new markets, thus leaving room if you want to sneak into
a niche somewhere. In fact, most are retreating into little protective
shells so they can stay in business. If you have lost your job, have
some savings and have an idea about what you can do to improve the
world, maybe you should consider taking the Left Hand Path and starting
your own company! If you do, here is what you can expect! The site:
HerosJourneyEntrepreneurship.org
--Charles Lauren Films
  Dr. E wrote the introduction to the 2010 book
Disciplining
the
Arts: Teaching Entrepreneurship in Context by Dr. Gary D.
Beckman, published by Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2010
The Hero's Journey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology seeks
to give students,
artists, and entrepreneurs
the tools to make their passions their professions--to protect and
profit from their ideas--to take ownership in their careers and
creations. For Adam Smith's invisible hand enriches all when happiness
is pursued by artists and innovators--society's natural founts of
wealth. Thomas Jefferson eloquently expressed the entrepreneurial
premise:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,
that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
--The
Declaration of Independence
The only clause in the main body of the United States Constitution that
mentions "Rights" states the following:
The Congress shall have power to . . . promote the
progress of
science
and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors
the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
--The
United States Constitution
Couple these two passages together, and one has the moral premise of
Artistic Entrepreneurship & Technology. Every student ought be given the
tools to create new ventures--to protect their intellectual property,
and to pursue and profit from their dreams on their "Hero's Journey"
into entrepreneurship. For it is along that journey that the long-term
"wealth of nations" is generated.
UNC TV: UNC Symposium:
Intellectual Property, Creativity and the Innovation Process:
Panel Discussion at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Law
The Law School panel is chaired by Laura Gasaway of UNC Law with John
Whealan Deputy General Counsel for Intellectual Property Law & Solicitor
USPTO, Marybeth Peters U.S. Register of Copyrights, Arti Rai Duke Law
School, and Dr. Elliot McGucken ArtsEntrepreneurship.com.
A Vision to Bring Back Sight: The Raleigh News &
Observer: . . . and Elliot
McGucken, who
commutes from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to work
with Liu. Their lab in Daniels Hall at NCSU seems to be a storehouse for
decades worth of oscilloscopes and other electrical measuring equipment.
A work bench in one corner houses the wire cutters and needle-nosed
pliers needed to actually build prototypes.
The progress here has not always been steady, McGucken said.
"It's gone by bumps and jumps over the years," he said.
And now that the team is having some success, they're also facing some
stiff competition. At the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston,
researchers from the Harvard University Medical School and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology are working on basically the same
device and facing many of the same challenges.
Dr. E in the lab,
wearing the artificial retina glasses with wire
coils.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Daily Tar Heel:
Students find dream jobs
in class, passions fuel business plans:
For many, childhood and adolescence pass in a blur of hobbies and
passionate adventures, activities seeped in a deep-seated excitement and
love inherent in a particular pastime. In UNC professor Elliot
McGucken's "Artistic Entrepreneurship and Technology" class, students
and teachers work to "make your passion your profession," transforming
students' dreams and interests into potential paths for the future. The
unique course allows students interested in fields such as photography,
video games, painting, classical music and film production to explore
commercial and social ventures in the arts. They search for and create a
plan based in entrepreneurship, which supports and nurtures their
individual visions. "A lot of times school tells you that your dreams
aren't important," says McGucken, a physics professor. "But in reality
passions and dreams are oft the best investment you can make, as they
are the one
sure, long-term thing." The class consists of
an independent project that includes three presentations, guest lectures
and small-group collaboration. Sophomore Phil Gennett's project is a
clothing line, and he is trying to find a manufacturer for his
creations. He also intends to set up a talent agency. "I want to blow it
up into a new sort of entertainment, like American Idol, but also as a
social network for opportunities," Gennett says. Sophomore Ryan Dean is
working on multiple projects. He runs a graphic design company called
Cellar Door Design. He also has joined with a photographer in the class
to create CD booklet artwork for the second album by his band, The
Anchor Comes Home. "What's most helpful is meeting like-minded people,"
Dean says. "The best thing about this class is establishing
relationships with the other students and collaborating with each
other." Stefan Estrada, graduate student and teaching assistant for the
class, shares a similar view. "The people in this class have ambition
and a vision of things they want to accomplish," Estrada says. "This
isn't a class where you get something done and forget about it. It
continues to maybe become your career."
Dr. E's screenplay The Legend of
McCoy Mountain & The Gold 45
Revolver has been honored with the following
screenwriting awards:
*Hollywood's PGA Producers Guild of America Producers' Showcase
Semifinalist: Hosted by Walt Disney & ABC Entertainment Group
*Top-5 Finalist at the Dixie Film Festival in Athens, Georgia
*Top-4 Finalist in the Los Angeles Sunset Film Festival
*Beverly Hills Film Festival Official Selection
*Columbia Gorge International
Film Festival
Official Selection
*Movie Script Golden Brad Winner (1st-6th rounds & still contending)
*2011
California
Film Awards Honorable Mention
*Finalist / Winner in the Yosemite International Film Festival
Screenplay Competition
*Semi-Finalist and Official Selection of New York's 2011 Independent
Film Quarterly Film & New Media Festival
*Los Angeles Art House Film Festival Honorable Mention
*The Colorado Film Festival Honorable Mention
*WriteMovies Quarter-Finalist
*Filmmakers International First Round
Dr. E's film Moby Dick in Charlotte Magazine
  Don't Count on It! Reflections on
Investment
Illusions, Capitalism, "Mutual" Funds, Indexing,
Entrepreneurship, Idealism, and Heroes : "Vanguard: Saga of
Heroes (Chapter 23) presents a very different interpretation than
you might expect from its title. This chapter is based on a lecture I
presented to Pepperdine University (CA) studnets, at the request of
Professor Elliot McGucken, as part of his course The Hero's Journey
in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology 101. "Dr. E" relies heavily
upon such classics as Homer's Odyssey and Dante's Inferno,
and honors me by including with these classics my own The Battle for
The Soul of Capitalism. This essay focuses on Vanguard's odyssey, a
voayge punctuated with challenges, narrow escapes, and ultimate
fulfillment. I conlude by urging introspection upon our financial
leaders, an idea that failed to get much traction back in 2007 when it
might have helped. But these leaders were simply making too much money,
taking too much risk, and showing too little concern about the crises
tehn building. . . -p. 436: "It's no mean task to measure up to the high
appraisal of my career
that
has been so generously expressed by Dr. Elliot McGucken. That he has,
remarkably, placed my 2005 book, The Battle for the Soul of
Capitalism, on the same reading list as The Odyssey--let
alone the same planet!--adds even more to my burden in meeting the
expectations of those who are aware of this background. . ."
--Vanguard,
Saga of Heroes, p. 469, Don't Count on It published 2010 by
John Wiley & Sons
Dr. E's artificial retina dissertation.
Princeton Club of Southern California: Hero's Journey
Renaissance Festival: Ideals in
Innovation: The Hero's Journey Entrepreneurship Festival
with Dr. E aims to
provide students, artists, and entrepreneurs with the inspiration
and tools to make their
passions their professions--to protect and profit from their ideas--to
take ownership in their careers and creations. This entreprenuership
event celebrates the
ultimate Renaissance Man--Leonardo da Vinci--while saluting "hero's
journey mythology" in the
realms of screenwriting, videogames, film, academia, and
robotics--robots inspired by da Vinci's designs.
Dr. E shooting in
Hollywood. |
CharlesFrith.com: Once
in a while a gem
of a podcast comes my way, and this is fresh off
the feeds from IT Conversations (where it is a top archive favorite
after three years!). It would be wrong to pigeonhole this from its title
"Artistic Entrepreneurship & Technology," a University course
that the
interviewee Dr. Elliot McGucken, a physicist, teaches. It doesn't even
come close to covering the ground that is completed in this heartwarming
and contemporary podcast. . . If you love the story form, from The
Matrix, Star Wars, The Godfather, Lord of the
Rings
to classics like The
Odyssey or want to tap into your artistic value, however that
articulates itself, listen to this. Should you feel that there is more
depth to this life than just making money and instead want to see why it
is so much more important than the futility of the greedy then take time
out for this podcast. Personally I need to get hold of a copy of John
Bogle's: Battle For The Soul Of Capitalism after listening to
this ace
find. --We Make Art, Not Money
Wake Forest University SEA: Dr. Elliot McGucken is a
trend-setter in
"artistic entrepreneurship" and
entrepreneurial applications with new internet technologies.
How's Dr. E gonna make it out of this one?
Got Profit?--The Triangle Tech Journal: McGucken's
business philosophy can be summarized by a handful of quotations from
famous philosophers and authors, including "A great fortune is a great
slavery (the stoic Seneca)," and "We do not commonly find men of
superior sense amongst
those of the highest fortune. (the Roman Poet Juvenal)"
A CMOS computer chip for Dr. E's artificial retina
dissertation.
POPULAR SCIENCE
Dr. E's award-winning artificial retina physics Ph.D. dissertation in
Popular
Science.
MERRILL LYNCH "INNOVATION GRANTS" AWARDED TO FIVE DOCTORAL
STUDENTS: NEW YORK, Sept.16 -- The Merrill Lynch Forum today
announced the first
winners of the Innovation Grants Competition -- its global competition
challenging doctoral students to craft commercial applications of their
dissertation research. The winners were recognized at an awards dinner
at
Merrill Lynch headquarters last night (Sept. 15), hosted by Merrill
Lynch
Chairman and CEO David H. Komansky. . .
Multiple-Unit Artificial
Retina Chipset (MARC).
Dr. Elliot McGucken, University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill/NC State
University. A computer-chip based device that can provide
limited-resolution vision for people with retinal-based blindness.
This
device could benefit the more than 10,000,000 people worldwide
suffering
from blindness originating from various causes.
. . .
A total of 213 proposals from 16
countries were submitted to the
competition, which was open to new Ph.D. recipients in the sciences,
liberal arts, and engineering disciplines. Entries were judged by a
distinguished panel of nine entrepreneurs, venture capitalists,
journalists, and innovators and were considered without knowledge of the
applicants' identity or academic affiliation.
"Academic research is a significant and often untapped source of
intellectual capital in our society, and a tremendous economic
resource,"
said Merrill Lynch Chairman and CEO David H. Komansky. "The winning
proposals from this competition are all excellent examples of how new
knowledge can be transformed into new value simply by encouraging
researchers to look at their research from a different perspective. We
hope that these Innovation Grants will help foster a closer interaction
between world-class science and the world of commerce," Mr. Komansky
added. The judging panel consisted of: John Seely Brown, Chief
Scientist, Xerox
Corporation, and Director,
Xerox
Palo Alto Research Center Edgar W. K. Cheng, former Chairman, The Stock
Exchange of Hong Kong John Doerr, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield &
Byers Esther Dyson, Chairman, EDventure Holdings, Inc. Peter C.
Goldmark,
Chairman and Chief Executive, The International Herald Tribune William
Haseltine, Chairman & CEO, Human Genome Sciences, Inc. John Markoff,
Technology Correspondent, The New York Times Edward McKinley, President,
E.M. Warburg, Pincus & Company International, Ltd. Arati Prabhakar,
former
Chief Technology Officer, Raychem Corporation In evaluating the
applications, the judges sought to identify proposals with the potential
to affect real change in industries and in the way people live their
lives. "The Innovation Grants Competition is a terrific idea," said
judge
John Doerr, of venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. "I
was impressed with many of the proposals and thought that several of the
ideas would merit a venture-capital follow-up."
"The excitement of the epic of the past can be utilized to promote
creativity and entreprneurship, accprding
to the organizers of the first Hero's Journey Entrepreneurship Festival. . ."
Dr. E's Hero's Journey EntrepreneurshipTM Festival
Dr. E in Malibu
Princeton University in the News: The Charlotte
Observer: Literature Wins Over Physics:
A year ago, Elliot McGucken appeared on his way to a successful academic
career. His 1998 doctoral dissertation at UNC Chapel Hill, a design for
a computer chip that someday could help blind people see, won a national
prize. He landed a job at Davidson College and began teaching physics
last fall. Then another of McGucken's passions -- an Internet
literature site
called jollyroger.com -- interrupted everything, transforming the
professor into an Internet entrepreneur. "Teaching is really fun; I've
really enjoyed it. But I wasn't sleeping
too much anymore," said McGucken, 30. So he decided not to teach the
spring semester, concentrating instead on
the fledgling Web business, which he runs from his Davidson apartment.
Since he created it in 1995, jollyroger.com and a series of related
literary discussion sites with names like killdevilhill.com,
Starbuck.com Classical Poetry Port and Businessphilosphy.com, have drawn
a global following. As his Web traffic increased, the checks grew in
size. Advertisers pay
$6 to $30 per thousand "impressions" (the number of times an ad banner
is downloaded onto users' screens), and he splits ad revenues with
Flycast -- 70 percent for him, 30 for Flycast. Despite the growth of his
online literary empire, McGucken remains the
lone employee. He pays others to host and maintain his computer servers.
And he has about two dozen volunteer moderators who manage hundreds of
online discussions. Education: Princeton University, bachelor's degree
in physics, 1991; UNC
Chapel Hill, Ph.D. in physics and engineering, 1998; post-doctoral study
at N.C. State.
Dr. E introducing William Fay at the Hero's Journey
Entrepreneurship Festival. Mr. Fay is the President of
Production at
Legendary
Pictures, whose credits include 300, Superman, Batman Begins,
The
Dark
Knight, The Patriot, Independence Day, The Hangover, Where the Wild
Things Are,
and
the in-production World of Warcraft (based on the videogame!) and
Paradise Lost, and it was great to hear his epic stories of the
production of today's epic blockbusters.
Dr. E applying Faraday's Law in his Ph.D. physics dissertation.
THE JOLLY ROGER-- sighted in the Los Angeles Times:: The
(Euripides) site is only a tiny part of a lavish virtual community known
as the Jolly Roger, which was created by Elliott McGucken, a physics
professor and researcher who lives in Chapel Hill, NC. An aspiring
writer himself, he built a richly detailed maze of discussion boards and
chat rooms devoted to the classic works of Western culture. McGucken
envisioned the site purely as a gathering place for literature lovers,
not corner-cutting college kids, and he's been forced to create some
password-protected parallel rooms for the true aficionados. Yet he's
stoic about the invasion of the term-paper trollers. On one hand, the
trafficking at least shows that teachers are still assigning the Western
works he holds dear. On the other? "Not everyone is reading them," he
says, ("but we do get a lot of emails from sailors upon our sites
thanking us for introducing them to Moby Dick and other Great Books. And
that's what it's all about.")
Small Business Trends: The Trend of the Artist
Entrepreneur: The
New
York Times article mentions Dr. Elliot McGucken's course in
artist entrepreneurship, which teaches artists that they should have the
skills to profit from their creations. This is a welcome development.
It's great to see artists who figure out
how to cost-effectively produce and sell their artwork, and otherwise
are able to combine entrepreneurship with their creative sides.
Early
iteraton of
Dr.
E's award-winning
Ph.D. dissertation computer chip the enhanced holed-emitter
phototransistors he invented.
Pepperdine Univeristy Awarded Grant to Develop Curriculum for
Artistic
Entrepreneurship and Technology: Describing his work, Dr.
McGucken
said, "I want to emphasize how classic storytelling pervades every field
in artistic entrepreneurship -- law derives from epic myths; brands
strive towards representing eternal elements ultimately embodied in
action, and epic storytelling can revive the Hollywood box office and
foster video games that achieve higher art." Dr.
McGucken's class this fall bases its syllabus on Joseph Campbell's
The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Says McGucken, "Every step of
the way
students are
reminded that it's all about some greater journey -- some higher goal --
that entrepreneurship is all about, serving the higher ideals over the
bottom line, and that all lasting value ultimately derives from value."
Dr. McGucken, who launched the ArtsEntrepreneurship.com program at UNC
Chapel Hill, received his bachelor.s of arts degree in physics from
Princeton and his Ph.D. in physics from UNC Chapel Hill. His
dissertation on an artificial retina for the blind received several
National Science Foundation (NSF) grants and a Merrill Lynch Innovations
Award. The retina-chip research appeared in publications including
Popular Science and Business Week, and the project
continues today.
He
launched the Web site, jollyroger.com in 1995, and now runs over 30
sites. The New York Times deemed jollyroger.com "simply
unprecedented,"
adding that the site "teems with discussion, the kind that goes well
beyond freshman lit 101."
Dr. E in the New York Times in the early days of the
WWW.
Dr. E & Tricia Jo with Gold 45 Revolver, self portrait Nikon
D300
New Book on "Hero's Journey Entrepreneurship" by UNC's
Artistic Entrepreneurship Professor
Highlights
the
Spirit of Entrepreneurs: UNC CEI, Chapel Hill, N.C. Dr. Elliot
McGucken, who developed and taught an
artistic entrepreneurship course at UNC this spring, is the author of
a new book that discusses the spirit of entrepreneurs in the context
of epic storytelling and the hero's journey. "Whether you're an MBA,
MFA, JD or DJ, the book is there to show you
how the business of art and the art of business are united in the
realm of higher ideals in epic storytelling," said McGucken, five-time
author and adjunct professor of Physics and Programming. His new book
is called The Hero's Journey in
Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology 101: Ideals Are Real. The book
was inspired by McGucken's pilot
course at UNC, The Hero's journey in Arts Entrepreneurship &
Technology 101. It includes
topics discussed in class, including McGucken's experience running
profitable Internet companies and his vision that an entrepreneur's
ideas found through technology, law, business or art can lead to their
passion, profession or vocation. "The book, which unites art and
entrepreneurship in a maverick way by
treating entrepreneurs as hero storytellers, was shaped around Joseph
Campbell's book, Hero with a Thousand Faces," said McGucken. "This
classic 12-stage journey includes a mythological hero or heroine, the
call to adventure (an entrepreneurial vision), and the return to home
(the exit strategy)." Campbell's book influenced Hollywood films like
Star Wars, The Matrix and
The Lord of the Rings. McGucken hopes his new book can
help inspire
blockbuster
ventures in both art and entrepreneurship. "Using the hero's journey is
a most efficient way to combine art, law,
business, technology and entrepreneurship in the classroom," McGucken
said. "The book presents the journey of entrepreneurs in a classical
context and their encounter with mentors, rescues, irony and survival
in its epic form. The purpose is to inspire students to make the world
a better place via artistic entrepreneurship." McGucken's class at UNC
attracts students who are interested in the
arts, entrepreneurial ventures and cutting-edge technologies.
"Everyone needs mentors to help guide you down whatever path you
choose," McGucken said. "For some people, a hero character from a book
or movie can also be a mentor."
Dr. E's enhanced-efficiency Holed-Emitter Phototransistor.
The dot-coms that can: The News & Observer Business:
Elliot McGucken, who runs jollyroger.com, a Chapel Hill-based Web site
devoted to classic books, doesn't sweat the competition much. He gets
about half a million unique visitors a month to his site and makes most
of his money on Web ads. A one-man shop, McGucken jokes that he makes
money - a rarity for a content-based site - because all of his
"employees" (the authors) are dead.
"The disappearance of banner ads was over-hyped," says McGucken, who
says he makes enough to live comfortably on the income from his site. He
does some e-commerce, selling T-shirts, books and the like, and he does
all his own programming.
Recently, jollyroger.com worked with local wireless company WindWire to
launch wireless Shakespeare greetings.
"I'm kind of a one-trick pony," says McGucken, who started the site in
1995 and quit his job as a Davidson College professor in 1999. "Any new
technology that comes along, I just apply it to the classics."
Dr. E selling books at Austin's SXSW after his Heros' Journey
Entrepreneurship lecture.
The Kauffman Foundation's Thoughtbook:
Elliot McGucken has an artful way of teaching entrepreneurship to
artists. He explains the entrepreneurial process, for instance, by
comparing it to the classic "hero's journey" in myths and epics.
Typically, in the first stage of the story, the hero embarks on a quest
that requires "separation" or "departure" from the familiar world (here
McGucken finds strong parallels to the decision to start a company) --
and after many twists, the journey ends with the hero's "return" (exit
strategy).
"Every aspect of classical story, including antagonists, mentors,
reversals of fortune, and the seizing of the sword from the stone, may
be found in the realm of entrepreneurship," McGucken claims. And there's
more. The college course he designed -- open to students in any major,
working in any of the visual, literary or performing arts -- mixes
classical concepts with cutting-edge practical advice, such as how to
use open-source DRM (digital rights management) to keep the ogres from
snatching your profits.
Testing an early Multiple-Unit
Artificial
Retina Chipset in Dr. E's lab.
THE JOLLY ROGER-- As reviewed by AOL, the Global Online Directory,
and
Excite. The Jolly Roger: Go here. Do not pass go. Whatever your
tastes
or politics, it's tough not to enjoy this smart-alecky, skillfully
written
and provocative online magazine. Literary, generational and plain-old
politics take it on the chin from this threesome.
Dr. E teaching astronomy--his first
love. "Follow your own star." --Dante
Dr. E @ work "after hours." :)
From Melville to Frost, the greats thrive on Outer Banks: THE
OUTER BANKS SENTINEL by Hart Mathews
Sentinel Staff Have the Outer Banks left you in a literary
wasteland? Do you get the
cold shoulder when you try to talk Aristotle with the local bartender?
Do you stride the beaches flinging verse at the sea because there's no
one else to listen? Although this area teems with writers and artists,
their company can
sometimes be hard to find. But if you have access to the Internet,
there's a link you should try
out: killdevilhill.com. As municipal as the name might sound, this web
site is really one of 10
different Internet sites that offer literary discussions, chats, classic
book sales and merchandise to thousands of visitors a day. And the Kill
Devil Hill site (headlined "Conserving Great Literature and the Great
Outdoors") isn't the only one that borrows the name of a local landmark.
Dr. Elliot McGucken, the site's creator, has nine other Internet
domains, including jollyroger.com ("The World's Largest Literary Cafe")
and hatteraslight.com ("Live Literary Lighthouse Chats"). "The same
sublime romanticism which is found in so much great literature
also resounds through names like 'Kill Devil Hill,'" says McGucken, "and
the same majestic sentiments expressed in so many classic books can be
felt all up and down the Outer Banks. From the country's tallest
lighthouses, to the legends and lore of pirates and shipwrecks, to the
world's first powered flight, the ribbon of sand off the coast of North
Carolina has always spurred my imagination."
Dr. E in Book Magazine
The Pittsburg Tribune: Navigating Literary Seas on
The Jolly Roger: The irony of being a
scientist who loves poetry is not lost on McGucken. "Poetry and physics
don't have
too much in common," he admitted. "There's no way to write down a
physical equation that explains love or laughter or tears." . . . There
is a relationship, hhowever tenuous, between science and literature in
the end products. McGucken said Einstein attempted to quantify the
theories of physical science in a deterministic fashion, but all he
found were that the deeper laws were governed by probability-a
deterministic theory eluded him; from there, he said, it isn't that far
a leap to Captain Ahab's search for the great white whale in Moby
Dick.
The Chapel Hill Herald: The class is the first of its kind
to
incorporate
art, technology and business. Student
Feedback.
Engineering News at NCSU: Research at NC State
Receives Innovation Grants from Merrill Lynch:
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 Forums 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. . . 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. McGucken received his award at a dinner ceremony held at
the Windows on the World Restaurant atopthe World Trade Center
in New York, NY, in September. David Komansky, Merrill
Lynch chairman and chief operating officer, hosted the event.
IT
Conversations: Artistic Entrepreneurship & Technology 101: Tired
of being a starving artist? Dr. Elliot McGucken's Artistic
Entrepreneurship & Technology 101 puts together a new approach to
entrepreneurship and the arts through a fascinating application of the
classic journey of mythological heroes. McGucken, a physicist, has
taught the class at both UNC Chapel Hill and Pepperdine, and has
expanded the concept through blogs, a festival, and an upcoming book.
In this interview McGucken describes how the course applies the
structure of the monomyth, the fundamental pattern of the great hero
narratives throughout history, from Odysseus, Jesus, and Buddha to
Star
Wars, Lord of the Rings, and The Matrix. Also called
the Hero's Journey,
Joseph Campbell identified this pattern in his book The Hero With A
Thousand Faces. McGucken even takes it a step beyond, using examples
from modern real-life success stories like Richard Branson and Kid Rock.
McGucken explains why the web's democratization of both the means of
production and distribution can be used by the big companies to continue
to exploit artists, or instead used by indie artists themselves who
preserve their own rights in their successful journey. It's your choice,
if you take it. (Archive favorite after three years!)
@ AUSTIN'S SXSW INTERACTIVE: Web 2.0 / 3.0
ArtsEntrepreneurship.com:
Make
Your Passion Your
Profession: Dr. E @ SXSW:
Don't need no VC when you've got a PC." Not only has technology
revolutionized the production and distribution of content, but it has
also allowed indie creators to bypass traditional MBAs to define
the rights fortheir creations and reap maximum profits. The
Constitution states thatcreators own their creations--so now what's the
best way for creators to share, sell, and profit? From Open Source CMS
to online incorporation to web 2.0/3.0 to the registering of patents,
trademarks, and copyrights, this is a panel for the indie creator.
Lecturer: Elliot McGucken Pres, 45
Surf
Artificial Retina Computer Chips
An early CMOS computer chip from Dr. E's artificial retina dissertation.
The white squares are enhanced-efficiency holed-emitter
phototransistors which
detect the photons, while the circuitry around the phototransistors
interprets and processes the photocurrent, converting it into an
electrical signal. The National Science
Foundation
reported, "Last spring, NSF-funded electrical engineering professor
Wentai Liu and doctoral student Elliot McGucken created a microchip
that will be used by the surgeons." --NSF's Frontiers
Dr. E's Physics & Moving Dimensions Theory: dx4/dt=ic:
Papers on Time,
Relativity, Quantum
Mechanics, and MDT
On the Emergence of QM, Relativity, Entropy, Time, ihbar, and
ic
from
the
Foundational, Physical Reality
of a Fourth Dimension x4 Expanding with a Discrete (Digital)
Wavelength lp at c Relative to Three
Continuous (Analog) Spatial Dimensions
The photon is used to physically probe and trace the discrete, digital,
dynamic nature of x4 as the quantum nature of physical measurement is
examined, while the foundational papers of Planck, Bohr, Heisenberg, et
al. are exalted, lead by Einstein's statement that physics "starts from
experience and ends in it." In its simplest case, a photon oscillates
while propagating at c as a probabilistic wave-front expanding through
the three spatial dimensions in a spherically-symmetric manner, as
demonstrated by the classic double-slit experiment, leading to the
natural conclusion that x4, in which the photon remains stationary
according to relativity, must thusly be oscillating and propagating at c
as a spherically-symmetric expanding wavefront. Relativity informs us
that all of a photon's motion is through the three spatial dimensions,
thusly dictating that the timeless, ageless photon remains stationary in
the fourth dimension x4. As electromagnetic radiation (the photon) is
quantized, while there is no evidence for quantum gravity, we may
conclude that x4 is quantized and digital in nature, while the three
spatial dimensions are continuous and analog in nature. qp-pq=ihbar.
(Born &
Heisenberg) and x4=ict or dx4/dt=ic (Einstein & Minkowski) are
fundamental relationships of QM and relativity. Both equations have
differentials on the left and an i on the right, as Bohr noted,
suggesting that a foundational change is occurring in a "perpendicular"
manner, implying a fourth moving dimension. qp-pq = ihbar. reflects the
discrete increment and quantum action.. .that emerges from the dynamic,
discretely parceled space-time geometry born by the discrete wavelength
of x4's expansion; while dx4/dt=ic, from which relativity and its
postulates derive, sets the velocity of the expansion of x4 to c. A
physical model encompassing both Einstein's "elementary foundations" of
relativity and Schrodinger's "characteristic trait" of
QM--entanglement--is presented.
Author Bio: In high school, theoretical physicist Dr. Elliot McGucken
received the
Bausch & Lomb Science Award, the William Tenney Scholar-Athlete Award,
and the Judith Resnik Memorial Scholarship which helped him attend
Princeton University. Dr. E.s Ph.D. research titled "Multiple unit
artificial retina chipset to aid the visually impaired and enhanced
holed-emitter CMOS phototransistors" received several Fight for Sight
and NSF grants, as well as a Merrill Lynch Innovations award. The late
J.A. Wheeler wrote, "More intellectual curiosity, versatility and yen
for physics than Elliot McGucken's I have never seen in any senior or
graduate student."
Dr. E's award-winning physics Ph.D. artificial retina dissertation.
What
is Ultimately Possible in Physics? Physics! A Hero's Journey
with
Galileo, Newton,
Faraday, Maxwell, Planck, Einstein, Schrodinger, Bohr, and the Greats
towards Moving
Dimensions Theory. E pur si muove!
by Dr. Elliot McGucken
ABSTRACT:
Over the past few decades prominent physicists have noted that physics
has diverged away from its heroic
journey defined by boldly describing, fathoming, and characterizing
foundational truths of physical reality
via simple, elegant, logically-consistent postulates and equations
humbling themselves before empirical
reality. Herein the spirit of physics is again exalted by the
heroic words of the Greats by Galileo,
Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Planck, Einstein, Bohr, and Schrodinger--the
Founding Fathers upon whose
shoulders physics stands. And from that pinnacle, a novel physical
theory is proposed, complete with a
novel physical model celebrating a hitherto unsung universal invariant
and an equation reflecting the
foundational physical reality of a fourth dimension expanding relative
to the three spatial dimensions at
the rate of c, or dx4/dt=ic, providing both the "elementary
foundations" for relativity and QM's
"characteristic trait"--entanglement, and its nonlocal, probabilistic
nature. From MDT's experimentally verified equation relativity is
derived while time is unfrozen and free will exalted, while a physical
model
accounting for quantum nonlocality is presented. Entropy, Huygens'
Principle; the wave/particle,
energy/mass, space/time, and E/B dualities; and time and all its arrows
and asymmetries emerge from a
common, foundational physical model. MDT exalts Einstein's
"empirical facts," "naturalness," and
"logical simplicity." For the first time in the history of
relativity, change is woven into the fabric of
space-time, and the timeless, ageless, nonlocal photon of
Galileo's/Einstein's "empirical world" is
explained via a foundational physical model, alongside the fact that c
is both constant and the maximum
velocity in the universe. The empirical GPS clocks' time dilation/twins
paradox is resolved by proposing
a frame of absolute rest--the three spatial dimensions, and a frame of
absolute motion--the fourth
expanding dimension upon which ageless photons of zero rest mass surf;
which underlie and give rise to
Einstein's Principle of Relativity.
When the solution is simple, God is answering. -Einstein
Time
as an Emergent Phenomenon: Traveling Back to the Heroic
Age of
Physics
by Elliot McGucken
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.
Dr. Elliot McGucken's Biography: "Dr. E" received a B.A. in physics from
Princeton
University and a Ph.D. in physics from UNC Chapel Hill, where his
research on an artificial
retina, which is now helping the blind see, appeared in Business
Week, the NSF's Frontiers,
and Popular Science 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 A. 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.
Local author writes to inspire a renaissance: Dr. Elliot
McGucken in the Pendulum: His book is about U.S. Marine Ranger
McCoy who invented APRIL, an advanced computer with artificial
intelligence. While he is serving overseas as a fighter pilot, Silicon
Virtue Inc. steals APRIL from his MIT lab.
He is shot down over Afghanistan, escapes his captors, and takes a wild
odyssey on home. He meets
Autumn, a mysterious folk singer with knowledge
ranging from classical art to the martial arts. They fall in love and
hope to save his invention. McGucken explains that there are very
important lessons established in
the novel. "Truth is beauty and beauty truth. People might try to tell
you
otherwise, but call their bluff," McGucken said. "Become that Autumn
Ranger, win Autumn's heart, and save April's soul."
"Autumn Rangers" is meant to inspire students to create a Hollywood
renaissance. "Head west and become a director, a producer, or
screenwriter and revive the classic myths in the living language. Or
journey up to New York and become an editor, agent, writer, or
publisher," McGucken said. This is McGucken's fourth book. He has
previously published a novel, a
poetry book and a collection of essays. McGucken attended Princeton and
later received his Ph.D. from UNC-Chapel
Hill. "I majored in physics but took a creative writing class each
semester,"
McGucken said. " I had Joyce Carol Oates, Russell Banks and Toni
Morrison as professors." He now teaches physics and programming at
UNC-Chapel Hill. His books can
be found at any bookstore.
THE TRIANGLE TECH JOURNAL
Dr. E & The Jolly Roger in the Triangle Tech
Journal
UNC
Chapel Hill Student: The Hero's Journey in Arts Entrepreneurship
inspired me to finally
incorporate my own business, and I will be reading more of the Great
Books & Classics this summer! Ideals are real! Rock on Dr. E!
MBA/Business
Class feedback for
The
Hero's Journey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology
The Hero's Journey Entrepreneurship Festival Returns to
Pepperdine:Five panels are planned throughout the day including
one titled Leonardo Da Vinci and the New Frontiers of Robotic
Technologies . . . The Italian Cultural Institute and Mentorography
are proud to present the Da Vinci panel with Mark Rosheim, an American
robotics expert. Festival participants will gather again for an
interview
between Brooks Ferguson, producer of films such as Titanic and
Little
Women, and Craig Titley, writer of Cheaper by the Dozen and
Scooby Doo.
The discussion will focus on how a screenwriter utilizes the "trickster
spirit" in contributing to the creative process "to bring meaningful,
impactful motion pictures to the world culture." Participants will join
Flint Dille and John Zuur of
the award-winning Chronicles of Riddick and Transformers
video games as
they discuss their new book, The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing
&
Design, and the future of the industry. Not only are Dille and Zuur
defining the merging of film and video games, they are also well-known
throughout Hollywood for mentoring upcoming talent. Elliot McGucken,
visiting assistant professor of business will moderate the Dille and
Zuur discussion. McGucken created
the Hero's Journey Entrepreneurship Festival to raise
appreciation
for
the role that classical literature and the arts play among future
generations of entrepreneurs.
Dr. E in Carolina
William Ferriss, former Chair of the National Endowment of the
Arts (NEA):
Many thanks for the impressive work that you are doing. I look forward
to keeping in touch and commend you on the innovative teaching you do.
Jack Bogle: Your message to our nation's young students--a
message of idealism and
enlightenment--is a breath of fresh air that must--and will--find its
way
into the musty corridors of our colleges and business schools. Perhaps
your happy acronym--CREATE (Center for Renaissance Entrepreneurship,
Art,
Technology, and Economics).will help. Keep up the good work! --John C.
Bogle, Founder & Former CEO of the Vanguard Group
Bill Fay: It was my pleasure to join you and keynote the
Hero's Journey
Entrepreneurship Festival. The enthusiasm of the students was great to
see.
--William Fay, Founder/President of Production at Legendary Pictures
(Batman, Superman, Inception, The Hangover,
300, The Patriot)
Dr. E's award-winning artificial retina physics
Ph.D. dissertation.
The Triangle Business Journal: What do you get
when you combine an interest in the arts with an interest in
entrepreneurial ventures and an interest in cutting-edge technology?
Dr. Elliot McGucken at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
says the result is someone he calls an artistic entrepreneur. Thus, he's
received a grant from the Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative to launch
a class called Artistic Entrepreneurship. Known as "Dr. E" to his
students, McGucken teaches physics and
programming and has published a poetry book, a novel, a collection of
essays, several scientific articles and - huh? - poetry in The Wall
Street Journal. Since 1995, he's run an online site called
jollyroger.com that pays
homage to the "Great Books" and serves as a forum for those who worship
excellence in literature. As for the new class, McGucken says it "will
invite writers, artists, directors, producers, musicians, business
majors, and computer programmers to work together in building artistic
ventures." "It'd be great to build a couple hip artistic ventures in
our own
backyard," McGucken tells Biz. "Why let New York and L.A. have all the
fun?"
Dr. E & The Jolly Roger in the Outer Banks Sentinel
UNC CEI (Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative): Dr. Elliot
McGucken, who
developed and taught an artistic entrepreneurship course at UNC this
spring, is the author of a new book that discusses the spirit of
entrepreneurship in the context of epic storytelling and the hero's
journey. "Whether you're an MBA, MFA, JD or DJ, the book is
there to show
you how the business of art and the art of business are united in the
realm of higher ideals in epic storytelling," said McGucken, five-time
author and adjunct professor of Physics and Programming. His new book is
called The Hero's Journey in Arts Entrepreneurship & Technology."
The Triangle Business Journal: Each month, (The Jolly
Roger) draws
between 100,000 and 150,000 unique visitors
interested in contributing poetry or taking part in literary discussions
about the great books and such authors as Melville, Shakespeare and
Robert Frost. Income springs from advertising, which McGucken
outsources in
partnerships with San Francisco-based NBCI, the Internet division of the
NBC network, and with another partner. NBC solicits ads, then splits
revenue from those ads with jollyroger 50-50, and for McGucken -- who
runs his one-man company out of his Southern Village neighborhood home
--
it's more than enough to get by. "It's more than I'd make as a college
professor," he explains. Since the NBC partnership two years ago,
jollyroger has captured more
than its share of attention, from the Wall Street Journal, the
New York
Times and Popular Science, down to Home Office
Computing. Those
publications retold the tale of an Akron, Ohio-born son of college
professors who graduated from Princeton and then headed to the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to study physics, graduating
with a Ph.D. in 1998. Meanwhile, in his spare time he was burning the
midnight oil on the Web
developing his "classical portal." Last year, he took a teaching job at
Davidson College near Charlotte, but gave it up this summer to go full
time into jollyroger. Thus far, McGucken says, he's resisted looking
for venture capital
investments because he wants to continue controlling both his own and
his portal's destiny. But what's his long-term exit strategy?
"I don't know that I have one." he says. "I wouldn't mind selling it at
some point to a larger portal. But right now I'm comfortable and I like
doing what I do."
Dr. E's portrait of a former Ms. South Carolina
Business Week: The Gift of Silicon Sight: To the blind,
retsoring even a modicum of sight would be a miraculous gift. . .
scientists in North Carolina are working on a tiny chip to be implanted
in the eye . . . Their chip is just 2 millimeters square--yet will
eventually have a 250-by-250 grid of electrodes. . . And the
electrodes--"phototransistors" developed by graduate student Elliot
Mcgucken at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill--will be
triggered by ordinary light coming through the eye's pupil. . .
The Charlotte Business Journal: The High Seas of Literary
Conversation: The Jolly Roger, an
online literary magazine and chatroom, is considering adding a new
feature to its Web
site-- live gatherings at pubs and coffeeshops across the country with
people connected via the Internet. The website and the pubs would work
together to stage the live chats, where groups would be connected via
the Internet.
Elliot McGucken, a former Davidson College professor who started the
site in 1995, has had preliminary conversations with pub owners across
the country about offering a face-to-face component to mirror the online
chats.
The talks are just one idea from the energetic McGucken. His
JollyRoger.com, billed as the world's largest literary caf., allows
literature lovers a portal to chat about favorite works. "It's always
better to let your imagination go as far as it can," he says. . . The
site, which takes its name from the pirate flag, is co-hosted by NBC.
Dr. John Archibald Wheeler (Princeton's Joseph Henry
Professor
of
Physics): 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 Journey 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. . .
Dr. E keynoting the Syracuse University Entrepreneurship
Classroom: Note that most everyone is still awake!
Lulu Staff Tweaks, Sweats Details Before Tour
The News & Observer
: It was the first Lulu Technology Circus -- the latest business
venture by Bob Young, the co-founder and former chairman of Red Hat
Linux, the
Triangle's best-known software company. The event celebrated and
explored the wonders of technology, including robotics, digital music,
video games and high-powered clustered computing. . . The Lulu team,
which recently added Elliot McGucken, founder and chief executive of
JollyRoger.com, an online community for folks obsessed by classic books,
met last week to further flesh out the ideas.
Elon Magazine: Visionary Research: Elon Professor
Wins Award for Work on Restoring Sight to the Blind: At first
glance, assiistant physics professor Elliot McGucken doesn't fit the
image of an award-winning scientist. With his youthful expression and
rumpled, casual clothing. . . But when McGucken talks about his work, a
different picture begins to emerge. Beneath the low-key exterior is an
experienced, cutting-edge researcher. To McGucken, scientific inquiry
is as much art as it is science. "You have to keep an open mind and a
broad persepective," he says. "The best insights you get happen outside
the lab. . . McGucken's insights recently won him a $20,000 innovation
grant from the Merrill Lynch Forum in New York. His contributions
towards a design for a computer chip-based implant aimed at helping
millions of people with retinal blindness won second place in a
compettion that drew more than two-hundred proposals from sixty
countries. . .
People using the device woul wear a special set of eyeglasses, McGucken
says. The chip set, weighing only a few grams, would enable them to see
simple shapes and movements and read large print.
The Charlotte Business Journal:
If we're short of geniuses, Dr. Elliot McGucken can likely help.
McGucken is a newly recruited physics prof at Davidson College, but
that's just half the story -- literally. For fun, he has another hobby:
a modestly successful literary and classics Web page . . . It's
successful
enough that The Wall Street Journal highlighted McGucken's dual
roles . . . He's also shopping a recently completed novel ("it has a
lot of classic literary references") and wrapped up a stint playing in a
grunge band in Chapel
Hill. With some understatement, McGucken, who
has a doctoral degree in physics/electrical engineering, says the
range of activities ensures a career no matter how perilous the academic
world becomes.
Dr. E presented his Authena Open Source Digital Rights Management
research for
indie
artists at the Harvard Berkman Center's OSCOM:
The News & Observer:
THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG HACKER
Elliot McGucken, a physics professor at University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, is just back from an open-source software
conference -- the conference on Open Source Content Management, or OSCOM
-- at Harvard. While there, McGucken and his colleague Blake Waters
discussed Authena, an open-source program for artists, musicians,
photographers and authors. Authena allows creative types to sell their
work online while controlling their rights to the material. Connect's
Christina Dyrness caught up with McGucken -- who also started the Web
site www.jollyroger.com, which is devoted to classic books -- on the
Chapel Hill campus and tried to get him to talk about Authena, which is
a project sponsored by the Durham-based Center for the Public Domain.
Q. Let's start at the beginning. What is Authena?
A. It's about the application of open-source to the arts. And it
also
kind of ties into the rise of the artist hacker. Because when you look
at the Linux operating system, it's all created by hackers.
Dr. E presented Authena--"a philosophy of creator's rights"--at
Harvard's OSCOM (Open SOurce Content Management
Conference) @ The
Berkman Center
for Internet & Society
Page from Dr. E's physics Ph.D. dissertation on an artificial
retina for the blind. The project is grateful to NSF and the
Fight for Sight Foundation for funding.
WWW RENAISSANCE MAN: Lake Norman's Neighbor of the Month:
A
Princeton University graduate, Dr. E also has Ph.D. and M.S.
degrees in Physics from UNC-Chapel Hill. The physics professor has what
at first glance seems to be an alter ego,
as well. His career and education background both in science, McGucken
is also a poet and lover of classical literature. He carries that
passion to the extreme, however, circulating it to the
world in general via his successful Internet site titled jollyroger.com,
which boasts 2 million page views per month to over 150,000 unique
monthly visitors, says McGucken. The New York Times called it
"simply
unprecedented," and said it "teems with discussion, the kind that goes
well beyond freshman lit 101." AOL advertises McGucken's site as
"smart-alecky, skillfully written and
provocative." It further states, "Literary, generational and plain-old
politics take it on the chin from (jollyroger.com)." "They're both
similar pursuits," says McGucken of his dichotomous
interests - physics and literature. "Both try to describe something.
It's how you think about things." The prof says most of his physics
students probably are unaware of his
literary side. "I pretty much only talk about physics in class, as
there's so much to
be learned. A couple of students saw me wearing a jollyroger.com t-shirt
in the gym one day and said they'd heard about it before. One of them
said that her high school English teacher had mentioned the site," says
McGucken. The site reflects aura of N.C. coast. "Oak planks of reason,
riveted with
rhyme, designed to voyage across all
time" greets the visitor to the jollyroger.com site. --Lake Norman
Magazine
The Graphic: New business class connects student passion with
capital:
"Looks like McGucken's found a way to inspire a new generation of
artistically minded entrepreneurs to follow their passion, and make a
living," wrote Teresea Ciulla in Entrepreneur Magazine. Matt
Llewellyn,
a senior advertising and marketing major who is enrolled
in the class, said McGucken's youth and experience make him an
effective professor. "I think he relates to students, because he's fresh
and new," Llewellyn
said.
McGucken
himself is an entrepreneur, with patents pending and his award-winning
Ph.D. research on an
artificial retina that can be implanted in the eye to restore
sight to those blinded by illness or injury. Artie Calhoun, a senior
economics major, said McGucken's experience
brought an extra dimension to the class. "Dr. McGucken seems to be very
experienced in the field of
entrepreneurship and quite possibly has a lot to offer to students like
myself," Calhoun said. Llewellyn started a company which sells bottled
water in downtown Los
Angeles, with packaging written in Spanish. He said he wishes he had
taken the class before he started his venture. . . Llewellyn and Calhoun
agreed students should take the class, regardless
of their major. "This class teaches about the advantages of thinking
outside the box and
keeping an open mind about the world around you," Calhoun said.
"Entrepreneurship can be found in every profession."
Book Magazine: Ex-prof takes love of literature online:
After earning a Ph.D. in physics from the University of North Carolina
in Chapel Hill and getting a teaching post at nearby Davidson College,
McGucken quit to devote all his time to--what else--his Web site. . . a
"classical portal," a huge index of chat-rooms, essays and poetry--each
with a literary theme. A quick tour reveals a number of McGucken's own
poems as well as live discussions for fans of everyone from Daniel Quinn
to Herman Melville to Sylvia Plath to Joseph Heller. "I want to bring
the classics to life for my generation. . ." It all ties in nicely with
North Carolina's Outer Banks, one of McGucken's favorite haunts...
Business Week: From Beethoven to Bob Dylan::
"Every artist is an entrepreneur." So argues Dr. Elliot McGucken, a
visiting professor at Pepperdine University, in an online video
introduction to his course, Art Entrepreneurship & Technology 101, which
has the professor lecturing from the shore of a small lake. Among his
suggestions for artists who want to be more entrepreneurial: "launch a
blog."
Entrepreneur Magazine: "Can you actually make your
passion
your profession? According to Dr. Elliot McGucken, a professor at the
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (and now Pepperdine
University), who's teaching the university's first "Artistic
Entrepreneurship & Technology 101" class, the answer just may be yes.
McGucken's class, which is comprised of a group of 45 students majoring
in law, business, art, computer science, journalism and music, focuses
on teaching students about creating value over just making money, about
letting their higher ideals guide the bottom line. After all, as
McGucken says, "Successful companies aren't successful because they make
money--they're successful because they create value." Class projects
range from a classical music video to a hip hop curriculum and textbook
to an online art gallery to a freshman's record label that's signed more
than ten bands to a social network being programmed by three computer
science majors. Students are seeing that to the degree they succeed in
creating useful art and ventures, they'll be able to support their
passions with a profitable business. And isn't that what we're all
really striving for? To find an excitement in our work in order to beat
back the dullness of the typical 9-to-5 routine? Looks like McGucken's
found a way to inspire a new generation of artistically minded
entrepreneurs to follow their passions--and make a living." --Teresea
Ciulla, Entrepreneur Magazine.
"Everything they don't teach in business, law, and film school. Nor on
the liberal arts campus anymore, come to think of it." --MBA in
Dr. E's Hero's Journey in Arts
Entrepreneurship & Technology Course
Festival to
Promote Business Creativity: The
Graphic:
The excitement of the epics of the past can be utilized to promote
creativity and entrepeneurship, according to the organizers of the
first Hero's Journey Entrepreneurship Festival. . .
The festival will include several professionals in the arts and
humanities field including Flint Dille and John Zuur of the award
winning--Chronicles of Riddick. and David Whatley, the CEO of
Simutronics. The festival will also include a keynote speech by
William Fay, who is the executive producer of films such as The
Patriot, Superman Returns and the current blockbuster movie
300.
"The Hero's Journey Entrepreneurship Festival" seeks to give students,
artists and entrepreneurs the tools to make their passions their
professions, said Dr. Elliot McGucken, visiting professor of
business. "The rising generation is longing for epic story across all
mediums."
McGucken's growing popularity is clearly visible not only in his
students, but also fellow members of the Pepperdine staff and faculty.
Vice Chancellor Michael Warder, for example, said the concept of
spreading entrepreneurship and business to artists of all types is
part of McGucken's genius.
"I think he speaks to creative students who are steeped in the digital
revolution in a very powerful and responsible way," Warder said.
Dr. E's award-winning artificial retina dissertation.
The National Science Foundation's "The Best of
Frontiers": In
the
surgery
suites of Johns Hopkins
University Hospital and the laboratories of North Carolina State
University, artificial vision is moving out of the realm of science
fiction and into reality.
During a videotaped procedure in 1994, surgeons put an electrode array
into the eye of a blind patient, and while delivering small, controlled
electrical pulses, asked what he could see.
"Well," replied the volunteer patient, "it was a black dot with a yellow
ring around it."
Last spring, NSF-funded electrical engineering professor Wentai Liu and
doctoral student Elliot McGucken created a microchip that will be used
by the surgeons. Limited laboratory experiments have shown that this
implant can expand artificial sight from the single dot in space to an
array of pixels, like that of a television set. So far, the artificial
retinal component chip (ARCC) has an array of 5 by 5 pixels--just enough
to identify individual letters. However, Liu, of North Carolina State
University, and McGucken, of
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, say that in the next five
years the chip will grow to a 20 by 20 array, and may eventually hold a
250 by 250 array--enough to read a newspaper. --NSF's Frontiers
(The retina is now helping
people see.)
Go Into the Story: The Web's #1 Screenwriting Blog: The
Hero's
Journey
as entrepreneurial model?
GITS reader and long-time friend Richard Rumble sourced this interesting
site that uses Joseph Campbell's theories re The Hero's Journey as the
basis for teaching entrepreneurship. At first, that might leave you
scratching your head, but check out this outline from the website:
Artistic Entrepreneurship 101 Outline:
(Based on Joseph Campbell's classic Hero With a Thousand Faces)
# 1 Structure (based on wikipedia's monomyth): The executive summary of
your artistic business venture.
|
Elliot McGucken, a professor of entrepreneurship, bemoans that "a lot of schools have dismissed the idea of teaching the great books." In a recent lecture, McGucken points out that that one lesson of the classics is, "Chance favors the prepared mind. Instead of viewing risk as a bad thing, we can also view it as a good thing."
