What I Did Last Week
By Paul VanRaden
In 2025,
HR@opm.gov required me (and all other US government employees) to report each Monday
what I did the previous week and I continued reporting after retiring. I
schedule what to do in future weeks and then transfer what I got done into this
report. The current page will be updated again in 2026 each Sunday, usually by
noon eastern U.S. time. Make it a favorite and click the reload button every 7
days. This page, similar pages, and the weekly reports I posted in 2025 are now
stored in:
Solutions To Personal Problems
February 1, 2026
During the 7 days of January
26-February 1, I:
Discovered that the atomic nucleus is
made of paired harmonic orbits of opposite spin in helium and all larger atoms.
The innermost orbit takes exactly half the time as the second orbit. Larger
elements have outer orbits in that same x-y plane also in harmony with the
first two. “Protons” and “neutrons” are really the same thing, analogous to a
binary star pair, and pass each other at 6 equidistant points per orbit, making
the orbits hexagon shaped around the nucleus’s empty center. Numbers of bodies
in each nuclear orbit explain the periodic table of elements. Atoms bond
together as molecules by sharing electron orbits that hold 2 nucleuses at a
stable distance. One electron has a linear up-down orbit thru the central hole
in the nucleus. This model of nuclear orbits is much more sensible than quantum
mechanics theory and explains the chemical bonds among elements such as carbon,
nitrogen, oxygen, and even DNA. Seeing the orbits and shapes is easier than reading
about them. You can now see the orbits within each nucleus at:
Explained the slides above on nuclear
orbits to my brother and 3 sisters at our weekly meeting and got comments back
from external 2 reviewers. Notes generated by AI from our family Zoom meeting
and the comments from reviewers are posted here.
Watched Richard Feynman’s 1973
lecture Story of Particle Physics. I was 90% sure that the paired harmonic orbits of opposite spin really
explain the nucleus before watching his lecture. At minute 7:17 my jaw dropped
and I became 99.99% sure that the orbital math is correct because his 1973
photo of a nucleus showed the paired orbital rings with hexagon shape that
matched the theory and graphs that I had drawn by hand a few days earlier. But
I still wonder why scientists in particle physics never bothered to derive
those simple nuclear orbits that explain the pretty picture of the orbits that
Feynman showed in 1973.
Remembered the 1981 song Too Much Time On My Hands by STYX: “I’ve got nothing to do and
all day to do it. I can solve all the world’s problems without even trying.”
World problems can be solved, but it takes many hours of work. I work harder
now than I did while fully employed and getting paid for 40-hour weeks but working
many hours of unpaid overtime and using only a small fraction of my vacation
time. In retirement, I now average about 70 hours per week because working on
new topics is more fun, and I waste fewer hours fighting with anonymous
reviewers. This week’s research on nuclear orbits is correct and very useful,
but I might not find a journal to publish it or even a physics conference that will
add it to their program. Nicolaus Copernicus had that same problem for 30 years after correctly proving that the
earth orbits the sun.
Went to a Rock and Roll concert /
laser light show only 5 km (3 miles) away. The stage and the excellent band FireFly were under a full moon with Neptune shining brightly a few degrees away
to the south, just as Copernicus and Newton’s math had predicted. A 49-second video
of my grand finale drum roll using colorful, lighted drumsticks is posted here.
January 25, 2026
During the 7 days of January 19-25,
I:
Watched lecture Understanding Gravity by Richard
Feynman recorded in about 1962 and then read the 180 short pages of Relativity: The Special and General Theory by Albert Einstein in 1920. Most of
that book was easier to understand than I expected until Einstein applied his
math to cosmology. He rejected an infinite universe because gravity’s pull becomes infinite from all directions if nothing stops
it. If gravity is a push from all directions except where partially blocked by
masses such as earth or the sun, that push gets slightly weaker after traveling
thru many masses and does not become infinite. Since 2002 I believe that
gravity is a difference in push instead of a pull and since 1984 I believe in
the infinite universe. Those ideas both still make sense after studying Feynman’s and
Einstein’s well-explained research. I added their references and more text into
my 2024 updated explanation of the direction of gravity. Those topics are not so important.
When you step on the scales, your weight will be the same whether the earth
pulls you down, the sky pushes you down, or space curves you down. And I will
not visit the whole universe whether it is large or is infinite.
Spent many hours on nuclear physics
and a new theory of why snowflakes have 6 sides and why many molecules have hexagon shapes. I plan to reveal that theory
in future weeks.
Calculated progress in milk yield due
to better genes or better management in two ways after discussions with Mike
Vandehaar. Means of milk yield per lactation were 14,209 pounds for cows born
in 1970 and 26,328 in 2020. The published genetic progress is 9,119 pounds and
implies 75% of progress was genetic, calculated as 9,119 / (26,328 – 14,209).
But the genetic evaluation math includes variance adjustments. Those “predict”
that today's genetic differences would be only 66% as large in the 1970 environment.
Thus, cows with modern genes might have given only 20,228 if milked in 1970,
calculated as 14,209 + 9,119 * 0.66. That implies only 50% of the progress was
genetic, calculated as 9,119 * 0.66 / (26,328 – 14,209). Higher means can
increase variance, causing better genes and better management to combine with
some multiplicative rather than simply additive effects on cow productivity.
Also on the topic of cows, I sent comments on a nice paper about redefining
fertility traits to my previous employee Jason Graham, consulted with my
previous research leader John Cole about selection index updates, and commented
on data collection for the two new calf health traits.
Watched 27-minute video How are Microchips Made? CPU
Manufacturing Process Steps. For anyone who computes, this video explains how computer designs have
increased chip speeds so quickly. They are evolving faster than human brains.
Cesar and I both agreed that watching this video was very good for our brains.
Got an eye exam and ordered new
lenses for my reading and distance glasses. For about 20 years, both eyes had
stable sphere measurements near -1.75 but my right eye worsened to -2.50 in 2023, -5.25 in 2024,
and then cataract surgery in 2025. The artificial lens is working fine, as
expected, but my left eye worsened from -3.00 in 2025 to -4.00 in 2026 so it
may need surgery soon also.
January 18, 2026
During the 7 days of January 12-18,
I:
Filled the gap years 2001-2011 that were
missing in my Annual Report file. I may have emailed Annual Reports in those
years, but AOL deleted my “Sent” mail before 2012. I had paper copies from
1994-2000 when I mailed my reports and found the 2005 report in a sister’s
reply. To list events in the gap years, I used my annual planning calendars on
paper that I have saved since 1988 and my records of Angel’s activities but
labeled those as Summaries since they do not show what I was thinking about at
the time. Remembering our past events is fun and may help us predict our
futures better.
Updated my daughter Angel’s life
story with the latest 3 years of events and started documenting events for the baby
she is expecting. That could give us 3 generations of fully documented lives.
“Undocumented” people are being deported even if they act like model citizens
and contribute much to our communities. People who are documented to be from
places where nobody would want to live are forced to return there. Many
American citizens have become evil people following an evil leader, as in 1938
when German citizens followed their leader. But the Germans only wanted
Austria, Czechoslovakia, and half of Poland, and never officially claimed “This is Our Hemisphere.” Babies with documents proving they were born in the USA are no longer
safe here because the President ended the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of birthright citizenship and the
Supreme Court will decide this spring if they agree. Many things to document
these days.
Added to my picture
biography photos of me at the United Nations building and the Statue of Liberty in
1994, at the Berlin Wall in 2014, and the piece of the Berlin Wall that I
carried with me for 20 years. The final slide of my 2014 Interbull / ICAR talk in Berlin quoted Ronald Reagan’s famous “Tear Down This Wall” speech but
instead I showed our Texas-Mexico border. You can believe in immigration and
international law even if the U.S. government now hates those ideas.
Watched documentary Why is there no B# or E# note on the
piano? directly connected to my music and keyboard research which was more
advanced in 2002 than youtube videos are in 2026. In October, my Experiments with Standard Piano audio did not play when accidentally
posted in .pdf but it plays now in .pptx or .mp4 formats. Files in .mp4 allow
autoplay instead of controlling the slide advance manually and are now posted
at Music and Math in Harmony.
Finally hiked the full nature trail
that begins a mile away from our house and walked 8.4 miles (13 km) to see what
our neighborhood looked like before houses were built. A few circular clearings
in the forest had grown some trees again, as if settlers tried to farm some land but then gave up. The only other
hikers were a group of 3 ladies with 4 dogs, 1 biker pedaling with his dog, and
1 motorized biker pulling a sled with deer hunting equipment and his tree
stand. Very peaceful day, except possibly for the deer.
January 11, 2026
During the 7 days of January 5-11,
I:
Heard that daughter Angel and
son-in-law Cesar are expecting a baby! An online app predicted Angel’s due date
of August 17, and we joked that the doctor probably uses the same app, but
their prediction based on ultrasound measurement of fetal length is August 24. For cows we predict
due dates very accurately using 25.4 million gestation length records, 152 million insemination records, and DNA genotypes of both parents.
Gestation length (duration) has 44% heritability in cows and 25% in humans because exact conception dates are known for most cows but not for most
humans.
Noticed that when we reported Angel’s
news to my sisters and brother, Zoom’s Artificial Intelligence got confused
because Angel shared my camera and microphone to announce her news. The AI
notes for our weekly meeting generated these sentences: “Paul shared his excitement about his first
ultrasound appointment on Friday, revealing he is 6 weeks pregnant… Paul shared
that he is experiencing fatigue as a symptom of his pregnancy, and discussed
his diet changes to support the health of his unborn child… The group discussed
Paul's experience with an AI-generated book gift from his wife, Angel…”
Zoom’s disclaimer said “AI can make mistakes. Review for accuracy. Please rate
the accuracy of this summary” and then asked for feedback. So, I explained the
facts of life to AI.
Read my 241-page biography book that
AI generated as a Christmas present from Angel. Reading it took about 8 hours
while taking notes on the content and quality of the text. The book was
interesting but did not use other information about me available on the
internet. AI had trouble keeping track of
family relationships and trouble with timelines, but a few of its best
sentences seemed better than any similar sentences I could find on the
internet. I added a more detailed summary of its problems and benefits in the
Artificial Intelligence section of Thinking, Computing, and Improving Both.
Noticed that MS Copilot AI can get confused by Trump. After
visiting New York City, I asked Copilot: “Is the UN building or Trump Tower NYC
taller?” and it replied “Trump
Tower. Trump Tower in NYC is taller than the United Nations building. Trump
Tower stands at 664 feet (202 meters), while the United Nations building
is 861 feet (262 meters) tall.” But 861 feet is the height of Trump World
Tower across the street from the 510 feet (155 meters) United Nations building built in 1952. Trump World Tower is 72 stories tall, but the top floor
is numbered floor 90. The penthouse suite in Trump Tower is on the top 3 floors 57-58 that are numbered 67-68. It occupies 11,000
square feet (1,000 m2), but Trump lied and officially claimed it was 30,000 square feet to get better bank loans and then
lost his resulting business fraud case. Copilot probably gave the wrong height because both buildings are at
United Nations Plaza. The purpose of Trump’s World Tower built in 2001 was to
prove that he can physically overshadow the UN and international law. He now
can veto the UN, veto US congress bills, commit any crime on Government time, and pardon any criminal who breaks Federal laws for him. What could go
wrong? Long ago, the whole world was united, speaking the same language, until
a developer built a tall tower in Babel and got the whole world confused (Genesis 11:1-9, Holy Bible). Copilot gets confused by Trump’s towers, but I do
not.
Gave my Supreme Court poem its own page. I wrote and posted it while still working for Donald Trump
but made it less searchable, and that explains the mystery of why I hid it in Holiday History. But I have no fear this year of
getting fired while retired.
January 4, 2026
During the 7 days of December 29,
2025-January 4, 2026, I:
Moved my
weekly reports from 2025 to a new location (see link above or below) and
restarted this What I Did Last Week page to only include news reported in 2026.
Emailed my
2025 Annual Report to
family on December 31 wishing them a happy 2026. Several of my relatives have
mailed me their annual greetings and stories for many years. I save their paper
reports and got to use those in 2023 when visiting my niece Andrea. Her kids took
turns reading the 15 holiday reports my sister Judy sent from 1988-2002 plus a
few letters that Andrea had signed and sent me as a child. The kids had not
heard or seen their Mom’s and her sisters’ and her parents’ life stories
before. In 2024 my sister Miriam also reread the letters and reports she had
sent me since 1986. In those days we often wrote letters without making copies
whereas typed letters and reports now usually get stored. My annual reports
going back to 1994 now include my 2025 news in:
Summarized
my website’s visits, visitors, most popular reports, and costs in 2025,
compared those to previous years, and described how and why I manage my own
pages instead of posting on social media sites. I added suggestions from
Hossein Jorjani into my draft report. In 2025, many more people (12,791)
visited my web pages and they viewed 34,747 reports in total, 3.7 times more
than in 2024. Further statistics and advice on managing websites from 27 years
of experience are posted in:
Reorganized
my main pages to display fewer items, fixed some broken links, and added some
files that the awstats web management software reported missing.
Celebrated the new year with Angel and Cesar at a party and
fireworks that also celebrated 25 years since this very pretty, peaceful
retirement community Solivita first opened. This planned community took 23 years to build the ~4,000
houses including our house which is 10 years old. A similar sized development Westview one mile away opened 2 years ago and those houses are being built very
rapidly. I watch them build every week while biking on their brand-new streets.
Both communities were previously pine forests, not farmland. More news from
Angel and Cesar next week.
The previous reports from 2025 telling what I did each week
are now stored at: