By: John Priest,
on 9/10/2016
The traditional view puts forward the idea that the vast majority of what there is in the universe is mindless. Panpsychism however claims that mental features are ubiquitous in the cosmos.
The post Is the mind just an accident of the universe? appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Kathryn Roberts,
on 8/8/2016
The Big Bang theory predicts that there was a powerful repulsive force at the beginning of the expanding of the Universe. A common hypothesis of the cause of the Big Bang is a short-term repulsive field, the so-called “inflanton”. Observations of supernovas have shown that the Universe is still expanding with acceleration.
The post A possible cause of the Big Bang and current acceleration of the Universe appeared first on OUPblog.
Rocket-Bye is one of the latest and greatest picture books from award-winning author, Carole P. Roman.
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By: Franca Driessen,
on 2/9/2016
The Earth we live on was formed from a cloud of dust and ice, heated by a massive ball of compressed hydrogen that was the early Sun. Somewhere along the four billion year journey to where we are today, our planet acquired life, and some of that became us. Our modern brains ask how it all came together and progressed, and what shaped the pathways it followed.
The post Blue planet blues appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Alex Guyver,
on 1/29/2015
Galileo and some of his contemporaries left careful records of their telescopic observations of sunspots – dark patches on the surface of the sun, the largest of which can be larger than the whole earth. Then in 1844 a German apothecary reported the unexpected discovery that the number of sunspots seen on the sun waxes and wanes with a period of about 11 years.
Initially nobody considered sunspots as anything more than an odd curiosity. However, by the end of the nineteenth century, scientists started gathering more and more data that sunspots affect us in strange ways that seemed to defy all known laws of physics. In 1859 Richard Carrington, while watching a sunspot, accidentally saw a powerful explosion above it, which was followed a few hours later by a geomagnetic storm – a sudden change in the earth’s magnetic field. Such explosions – known as solar flares – occur more often around the peak of the sunspot cycle when there are many sunspots. One of the benign effects of a large flare is the beautiful aurora seen around the earth’s poles. However, flares can have other disastrous consequences. A large flare in 1989 caused a major electrical blackout in Quebec affecting six million people.
Interestingly, Carrington’s flare of 1859, the first flare observed by any human being, has remained the most powerful flare so far observed by anybody. It is estimated that this flare was three times as powerful as the 1989 flare that caused the Quebec blackout. The world was technologically a much less developed place in 1859. If a flare of the same strength as Carrington’s 1859 flare unleashes its full fury on the earth today, it will simply cause havoc – disrupting electrical networks, radio transmission, high-altitude air flights and satellites, various communication channels – with damages running into many billions of dollars.
There are two natural cycles – the day-night cycle and the cycle of seasons – around which many human activities are organized. As our society becomes technologically more advanced, the 11-year cycle of sunspots is emerging as the third most important cycle affecting our lives, although we have been aware of its existence for less than two centuries. We have more solar disturbances when this cycle is at its peak. For about a century after its discovery, the 11-year sunspot cycle was a complete mystery to scientists. Nobody had any clue as to why the sun has spots and why spots have this cycle of 11 years.
A first breakthrough came in 1908 when Hale found that sunspots are regions of strong magnetic field – about 5000 times stronger than the magnetic field around the earth’s magnetic poles. Incidentally, this was the first discovery of a magnetic field in an astronomical object and was eventually to revolutionize astronomy, with subsequent discoveries that nearly all astronomical objects have magnetic fields. Hale’s discovery also made it clear that the 11-year sunspot cycle is the sun’s magnetic cycle.
Matter inside the sun exists in the plasma state – often called the fourth state of matter – in which electrons break out of atoms. Major developments in plasma physics within the last few decades at last enabled us to systematically address the questions of why sunspots exist and what causes their 11-year cycle. In 1955 Eugene Parker theoretically proposed a plasma process known as the dynamo process capable of generating magnetic fields within astronomical objects. Parker also came up with the first theoretical model of the 11-year cycle. It is only within the last 10 years or so that it has been possible to build sufficiently realistic and detailed theoretical dynamo models of the 11-year sunspot cycle.
Until about half a century ago, scientists believed that our solar system basically consisted of empty space around the sun through which planets were moving. The sun is surrounded by a million-degree hot corona – much hotter than the sun’s surface with a temperature of ‘only’ about 6000 K. Eugene Parker, in another of his seminal papers in 1958, showed that this corona will drive a wind of hot plasma from the sun – the solar wind – to blow through the entire solar system. Since the earth is immersed in this solar wind – and not surrounded by empty space as suspected earlier – the sun can affect the earth in complicated ways. Magnetic fields created by the dynamo process inside the sun can float up above the sun’s surface, producing beautiful magnetic arcades. By applying the basic principles of plasma physics, scientists have figured out that violent explosions can occur within these arcades, hurling huge chunks of plasma from the sun that can be carried to the earth by the solar wind.
The 11-year sunspot cycle is only approximately cyclic. Some cycles are stronger and some are weaker. Some are slightly longer than 11 years and some are shorter. During the seventeenth century, several sunspot cycles went missing and sunspots were not seen for about 70 years. There is evidence that Europe went through an unusually cold spell during this epoch. Was this a coincidence or did the missing sunspots have something to do with the cold climate? There is increasing evidence that sunspots affect the earth’s climate, though we do not yet understand how this happens.
Can we predict the strength of a sunspot cycle before its onset? The sunspot minimum around 2006–2009 was the first sunspot minimum when sufficiently sophisticated theoretical dynamo models of the sunspot cycle existed and whether these models could predict the upcoming cycle correctly became a challenge for these young theoretical models. We are now at the peak of the present sunspot cycle and its strength agrees remarkably with what my students and I predicted in 2007 from our dynamo model. This is the first such successful prediction from a theoretical model in the history of our subject. But is it merely a lucky accident that our prediction has been successful this time? If our methodology is used to predict more sunspot cycles in the future, will this success be repeated?
Headline image credit: A spectacular coronal mass ejection, by Steve Jurvetson. CC-BY-2.0 via Flickr.
The post Are the mysterious cycles of sunspots dangerous for us? appeared first on OUPblog.
By: ChloeF,
on 10/3/2014
World Space Week has prompted myself and colleagues at the Open University to discuss the question: ‘Is there life beyond Earth?’
The bottom line is that we are now certain that there are many places in our Solar System and around other stars where simple microbial life could exist, of kinds that we know from various settings, both mundane and exotic, on Earth. What we don’t know is whether any life does exist in any of those places. Until we find another example, life on Earth could be just an extremely rare fluke. It could be the only life in the whole Universe. That would be a very sobering thought.
At the other extreme, it could be that life pops up pretty much everywhere that it can, so there should be microbes everywhere. If that is the case, then surely evolutionary pressures would often lead towards multicellular life and then to intelligent life. But if that is correct – then where is everybody? Why can’t we recognise the signs of great works of astroengineering by more ancient and advanced aliens? Why can’t we pick up their signals?
The chemicals from which life can be made are available all over the place. Comets, for example, contain a wide variety of organic molecules. They aren’t likely places to find life, but collisions of comets onto planets and their moons should certainly have seeded all the habitable places with the materials from which life could start.
So where might we find life in our Solar System? Most people think of Mars, and it is certainly well worth looking there. The trouble is that lumps of rock knocked off Mars by asteroid impacts have been found on Earth. It won’t have been one-way traffic. Asteroid impacts on Earth must have showered some bits of Earth-rock onto Mars. Microbes inside a rock could survive a journey in space, and so if we do find life on Mars it will be important to establish whether or not it is related to Earth-life. Only if we find evidence of an independent genesis of life on another body in our Solar System will we be able to conclude that the probability of life starting, given the right conditions, is high.
For my money, Mars is not the most likely place to find life anyway. The surface environment is very harsh. The best we might hope for is some slowly-metabolising rock-eating microbes inside the rock. For a more complex ecosystem, we need to look inside oceans. There is almost certainly liquid water below the icy crust of several of the moons of the giant planets – especially Europa (a moon of Jupiter) and Enceladus (a moon of Saturn). These are warm inside because of tidal heating, and the way-sub-zero surface and lack of any atmosphere are irrelevant. Moreover, there is evidence that life on Earth began at ‘hydrothermal vents’ on the ocean floor, where hot, chemically-rich, water seeps or gushes out. Microbes feed on that chemical energy, and more complex organisms graze on the microbes. No sunlight, and no plants are involved. Similar vents seem pretty likely inside these moons – so we have the right chemicals and the right conditions to start life – and to support a complex ecosystem. If there turns out to be no life under Europa’s ice them I think the odds of life being abundant around other stars will lengthen considerably.
We think that Europa’s ice is mostly more than 10 km thick, so establishing whether or not there is life down there wont be easy. Sometimes the surface cracks apart and slush is squeezed out to form ridges, and these may be the best target for a lander, which might find fossils entombed in the slush.
Enceladus is smaller and may not have such a rich ocean, but comes with the big advantage of spraying samples of its ocean into space though cracks near its south pole (similar plumes have been suspected at Europa, but not proven). A properly equipped spaceprobe could fly through Enceladus’s eruption plumes and look for chemical or isotopic traces of life without needing to land.
I’m sure you’ll agree, moons are fascinating!
Headline image credit: Center of the Milky Way Galaxy, from NASA’S Marshall Space Flight Center. CC-BY-ND-2.0 via Flickr.
The post Are we alone in the Universe? appeared first on OUPblog.
By: DanP,
on 8/22/2014
If you share my jealousy of Peter Capaldi and his new guise as the Doctor, then read on to discover how you could become the next Time Lord with a fondness for Earth. However, be warned: you can’t just pick up Matt Smith’s bow-tie from the floor, don Tom Baker’s scarf, and expect to save planet Earth every Saturday at peak viewing time. You’re going to need training. This is where Oxford’s online products can help you. Think of us as your very own Companion guiding you through the dimensions of time, only with a bit more sass. So jump aboard (yes it’s bigger on the inside), press that button over there, pull that lever thingy, and let’s journey through the five things you need to know to become the Doctor.
Being called two-faced may not initially appeal to you. How about twelve-faced? No wait, don’t leave, come back! Part of the appeal of the Doctor is his ability to regenerate and assume many faces. Perhaps the most striking example of regeneration we have on our planet is the Hydra fish which is able to completely re-grow a severed head. Even more striking is its ability to grow more than one head if a small incision is made on its body. I don’t think it’s likely the BBC will commission a Doctor with two heads though so best to not go down that route. Another example of an animal capable of regeneration is Porifera, the sponges commonly seen on rocks under water. These sponge-type creatures are able to regenerate an entire limb which is certainly impressive but are not quite as attractive as The David Tenants or Matt Smiths of this world.
Although alien invasion narratives only crossed over to mainstream fiction after World War II, the Doctor has been fighting off alien invasions since the Dalek War and the subsequent destruction of Gallifrey. Alien invasion narratives are tied together by one salient issue: conquer or be conquered. Whether you are battling Weeping Angels or Cybermen, you must first make sure what you are battling is indeed an alien. Yes, that lady you meet every day at the bus-stop with the strange smell may appear to be from another dimension but it’s always better to be sure before you whip out your sonic screwdriver.
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field telescope captures a patch of sky that represents one thirteen-millionth of the area of the whole sky we see from Earth, and this tiny patch of the Universe contains over 10,000 galaxies. One thirteen-millionth of the sky is the equivalent to holding a grain of sand at arm’s length whilst looking up at the sky. When we look at a galaxy ten billion light years away, we are actually only seeing it by the light that left it ten billion years ago. Therefore, telescopes are akin to time machines.
The sheer vastness and mystery of the universe has baffled us for centuries. Doctor Who acts as a gatekeeper to the unknown, helping us imagine fantastical creatures such as the Daleks, all from the comfort of our living rooms.
The majority of time-travel narratives avoid the use of a physical time-machine. However, the Tardis, a blue police telephone box, journeys through time dimensions and is as important to the plot of Doctor Who as upgrades are to Cybermen. Although it looks like a plain old police telephone box, it has been known to withstand meteorite bombardment, shield itself from laser gun fire and traverse the time vortex all in one episode. The Tardis’s most striking characteristic, that it is “much bigger on the inside”, is explained by the Fourth Doctor, Tom Baker, by using the analogy of the tesseract.
It’s all very well saving the Universe every week but what use is that without a signature look? Tom Baker had the scarf, Peter Davison had the pin-stripes, John Hurt even had the brooding frown, so what will your dress-sense say about you? Perhaps you could be the Doctor with a cravat or the time-traveller with a toupee? Whatever your choice, I’m sure you’ll pull it off, you handsome devil you.
Don’t forget a good sense of humour to compliment your dashing visage. When Doctor Who was created by Donald Wilson and C.E. Webber in November 1963, the target audience of the show was eight-to-thirteen-year-olds watching as part of a family group on Saturday afternoons. In 2014, it has a worldwide general audience of all ages, claiming over 77 million viewers in the UK, Australia, and the United States. This is largely due to the Doctor’s quick quips and mix of adult and childish humour.
You’ve done it! You’ve conquered the cybermen, exterminated the daleks, and saved Earth (we’re eternally grateful of course). Why not take the Tardis for another spin and adventure through more of Oxford’s online products?
Image credit: Doctor Who poster, by Doctor Who Spoilers. CC-BY-SA-2.0 via Flickr.
The post An Oxford Companion to being the Doctor appeared first on OUPblog.
Enter to win a copy of Wonders of Life: Exploring the Most Extraordinary Phenomenon in the Universe, by Prof. Brian Cox. Giveaway begins April 11, 2014, at 12:01 A.M. PST and ends May 10, 2014, at 11:59 P.M. PST.
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Not sure why scientists are so ga-ga over figuring out what black holes really are. I’ve already done that. And I know how they are formed. Revisions = black holes Revisions are formed when first drafts become second drafts, third drafts, fourth drafts, etc. An endless loop of deletions and additions that suck the writer…
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By: Beth,
on 4/11/2012
Title: Brian Cox’s Wonders of the Universe
Cost: 6.99
Platform: iPad 2 and higher with iOS 5 or higher
“Wonders of the Universe, a new app from the BBC, HarperCollins, and Professor Brian Cox, takes you zooming through our universe, from a broad view at multiple galaxies all the way down to a look at subatomic particles–with more than a film’s worth of videos, a staggering amount of gorgeous space photos, and hundreds of interesting articles as well. It takes the idea of an interactive textbook far beyond what we’ve seen before.” — from Wonders of the Universe App Is Your Space Textbook of the Future
In previous App of the Week posts I’ve talked about how librarians will want to start thinking about and looking at apps as a part of their non-fiction and textbook collections. Brian Cox’s Wonders of the Universe is a perfect example of this. The app is filled with lots of good text-based information. But, beyond that, it includes many videos in which Cox discusses and demonstrates concepts covered in the app. For visual and auditory learners these videos, along with the high-quality images, will surely help increase understanding of the universe. The screencast below provides an overview of the app’s impressive user interface and content.
You can read more YALSA App of the Week posts by visiting the App of the Week Archive.
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By: Rosalie Warren,
on 10/12/2011
In an infinite universe, anything that can happen does happen - an infinite number of times.
Of course, the idea of an infinite universe is a tricky (possibly an infinitely tricky) one to grasp, and there's no proof as yet that our universe is infinite. Some theories propose that we may be part of a multiverse - a (possibly) infinite number of universes embodying all possible physical laws and values of important constants like the strength of gravity. Many of these universes would contain little of interest (a low gravitational constant, for example, makes it impossible for galaxies and stars to form, so life is most unlikely). Other variants would look more like ours. There might even be one in which I don't like chocolate, though I'm not sure that counts as 'possible'.
And then there's the interpretation of quantum theory which says that when you open the box to reveal Schrödinger's cat, the universe splits into the 'cat-alive' and the 'cat-dead' version. By the time a few splits like this have occurred, you get a fair degree of diversity and some interesting narratives evolving.
Which brings me to the connection (there is one, I promise) with writers and writing.
If the universe really is infinite, then all our books, even our wildest fictional fantasies, are true. There is a universe somewhere, or perhaps a pocket of our own universe, where the characters you and I have invented actually exist - and do exactly the things they do in our books. And, in a 'neighbouring' universe, they make slightly different choices and perhaps write themselves into a better book.
This may all sound incredibly far-fetched. I am not an expert, though I did some physics at university long ago. These days, I'm a keen reader of those books that thrill you with the exciting bits of cosmology, quantum physics and neuroscience. They set my imagination alight... and nothing does that more than the idea that every work of fiction ever written has actually happened, somewhere way out there. I'm not sure why this thrills me, but it does.
As I sit and write, often feeling that I am listening in to my characters' conversations and observing their actions rather than making them up, the idea that I am tuning in to something real is a very powerful and poignant one.
I realise that the question of what 'actually exists' plunges one into some deep waters of philosophy. I'm going to stay in the shallows for the purpose of this post, but if anyone wants to wade out deeper, I'd love to know what you think.
Thanks to Brian Greene and his intriguing book 'The Hidden Reality' (Allen Lane, 2011), which gave me some insight into all this stuff and made me marvel all over again at the wonderful place in which we live. It seems safe to assume that the universe is even more amazing than our current theories tell us, and that, for me, feels exactly right.
[Photo of Earth from space by Terra satellite, image copyright NASA]
By: admin,
on 4/26/2011
12 days of sci-fi day 3:Nuns are people too, and we are given a view of the diversity of personalities who are called to the religious life as the stories move from Antivenin to An Exercise in Logic. Parents should be apprised that the salty ship commander engages in mild cussing akin to a John Wayne style character, but only a few instances…
Editor’s comment: “She holds herself with the dignity of her position as both a nun and a diplomat, yet is willing to bend–whether that means by sneaking out in defiance of the mission commander’s orders or going to her knees to pray when logic seems to fail her. “
How many times, when trying to get a point across in a conversation with someone of a totally different life experience, we have said it to be alien or foreign to them? In this story, trying to explain Christianity to people raised in secluded colonies is a bit like trying to explain a life of freedom to someone whose lifelong existence has been dictated under communist rule. But even more difficult is being the foreigner…the one who cannot comprehend the faith belief being explained. A nun and expert on alien religions, Sr. Julian is called in to negotiate with a group of aliens whose obedience to the decisions and words of their ancestors is taken to the extreme, and she has a short time to learn their religion in order to prove them illogical. Aristotle is oft quoted as saying “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”, and this story demonstrates how respectful discourse rather than angry debate can lead to Truth. For those who like stories of intellect and strategy, this one is for you! Pick up the entire anthology at Amazon http://ow.ly/4F48e .
(About the author: Barton has a degree in physics. Happily married to genre poet Elizabeth Penrose, he confuses everybody by being both a born-again Christian and a liberal Democrat. His work has appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, ChiZine, Cricket, Cicada, The New York Review of Science Fiction and many small press markets. His e-novels, “Ella the Vampire,” “Parole,” and “Max and Me” can be downloaded now from Lyrical Press or amazon.com, and his first paperback, “I Will” is available from Virtual Tales (or amazon). Barton was prohibited from entering the Confluence Short Story Contest again after winning first prize two years in a row.)
By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review
Published: April 25, 2011
From seeing the stars to taking a tour of the moon, The Klutz Guide to the Galaxy is an educational, entertaining, intergalactic treat. The book comes with 6 tools, including a build-it-yourself telescope and a no-batteries-required sundial, to help kids ages 8 and up navigate their way through outer space. The design and layout is kid-friendly, making it easy for galactic explorers to digest information and ponder some of the greatest scientific discoveries of our universe, right from their backyards.
Is it possible you have a young galactic explorer at your house? If so, reach for the stars and enter to win one of two copies of The Klutz Guide to the Galaxy. Giveaway begins April 25, 2011, at 12:01 A.M. PST and ends May 23, 2011, at 11:59 P.M. PST.
Reading Level: 8 and up
Paperback: 67 pages
Book overview: THE KLUTZ GUIDE TO THE GALAXY by Pat Murphy and the Scientists of Klutz Labs
Isn’t it time you discovered your place in the galaxy?
Explore the universe without leaving the comfort of your backyard. When the scientists at Klutz Labs tackle outer space, we not only ask questions like “Where’s the Big Dipper” but also “If I lived on planet Mercury, am I already old enough to drive?” Use the included telescope, red light for night use, sundial, and astrolab to start exploring our great galaxy.
Visit the product page!
Learn more about the galaxy!
Click to enlarge.
By: Lauren,
on 4/21/2011
Imagine that tomorrow’s newspaper comes with a surprising headline: ‘Scientists Discover that Human Behavior is Entirely Determined.’ Reading through the article, you learn more about precisely what this determinism entails. It turns out that everything you do – every behavior, thought and decision – is completely caused by prior events, which are in turn caused by earlier events… and so forth, stretching back in a long chain all the way to the beginning of the universe.
A discovery like this one would naturally bring up a difficult philosophical question. If your actions are completely determined, can you ever be morally responsible for anything you do? This question has been a perennial source of debate in philosophy, with some philosophers saying yes, others saying no, and millennia of discussion that leave us no closer to a resolution.
As a recent New York Times article explains, experimental philosophers have been seeking to locate the source of this conundrum in the nature of the human mind. The key suggestion is that the sense of puzzlement we feel in response to this issue arises from a conflict between two different psychological processes. Our capacity for abstract, theoretical reasoning tells us: ‘Well, if you think about it rationally, no one can be responsible for an act that is completely determined.’ But our capacity for immediate emotional responses gives us just the opposite answer: ‘Wait! No matter how determined people might be, they just have to be responsible for the terrible things they do…’
To put this hypothesis to the test, the philosopher Shaun Nichols and I conducted a simple experiment. All participants were asked to imagine a completely deterministic universe (‘Universe A’). Then different participants were given different questions that encouraged different modes of thought. Some were given a question that encouraged more abstract theoretical reasoning:
In Universe A, is it possible for a person to be fully morally responsible for their actions?
Meanwhile, other participants were given a question that encouraged a more emotional response:
In Universe A, a man named Bill has become attracted to his secretary, and he decides that the only way to be with her is to kill his wife and three children. He knows that it is impossible to escape from his house in the event of a fire. Before he leaves on a business trip, he sets up a device in his basement that burns down the house and kills his family.
Is Bill fully morally responsible for killing his wife and children?
The results showed a striking difference between the two conditions. Participants in the abstract reasoning condition overwhelmingly answered that no one could ever be morally responsible for anything in Universe A. But participants in the more emotional condition had a very different reaction. Even though Bill was described as living in Universe A, they said that he was fully morally responsible for what he had done. (Clearly, this involves a kind of contradiction: it can’t be that no one in Universe A is morally responsible for anything but, at the same time, this one man in Universe A actually is morally responsible for killing his family.)
Of course, it would be foolish to suggest that experiments like this one can somehow solve the problem of free will all by themselves. Still, it does appear that a close look at the empirical data can afford us a certain kind of insight. The results help us to get at the roots of our sense that there is a puzzle here and, thereby, to open up new avenues of inquiry that might not otherwise have been possible.
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By: Kirsty,
on 3/14/2011
Peter Atkins is the author of almost 60 books, including Galileo’s Finger: The Ten Great Ideas of Science, Four Laws that Drive the Universe, and the world-renowned textbook Physical Chemistry. His latest book is On Being, which is a scientist’s exploration of the great questions of existence. In the below video, Atkins is in conversation about the book with Meet the Author’s David Freeman.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Watch more videos on the OUPAcademic YouTube channel.
By: Bill Kirk,
on 1/23/2011
With every revelation of the Hubble telescope, the universe appears ever more mind boggling. According to NASA, a massive black hole has been detected by the Hubble in the M84 galaxy:
"The Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph measured a velocity of 880,000 mph within 26 light-years of the galaxy's center. This measurement allowed astronomers to calculate that the black hole contains at least 300 million solar masses. M84 is located in the Virgo Cluster of galaxies, 50 million light-years from Earth, and a nearby neighbor to the more massive M87 galaxy, which also contains an extremely massive black hole." (NASA)
Just think of it. We are but a speck in a quite small solar system "only" several hundred million miles across. Our solar system is among millions of other solar systems inside the Milky Way galaxy, which itself is only one among millions of other galaxies, of which M84 and M87 are just two. Those two galaxies are part of a cluster of galaxies called the Virgo Cluster, which itself is 50 million light years away from us.
That means it would take us 50 million years traveling at the speed of light (about186,000 miles per second) to get there. I would try to calculate the distance in miles. But I'm certain I'd drop too many zeroes. Perhaps even more amazingly, on top of it all, the black hole discovered inside galaxy M84 contains the masses of more than 300 million suns. And, get this, according to the NASA report, in the middle of that galaxy velocities of 880,000 miles per hour have been measured. Such high velocities are apparently used by scientists to detect the presence of a black hole.
Compared to the speed of light, 880,000 miles per hour is really way slow. But just think. Traveling at that speed, it would only take us around 15 minutes to get to our moon. This is definitely one of those "things that make you go "Hmmmm". The scope is almost beyond comprehension. If you ask me, in the overall scheme of things, whether or not the furniture got dusted this week is probably not worth worrying about.
By: yesisedit,
on 7/15/2009
What color is my cat ?
What color is the butterfly ?
What color is the snow ?
Orange, gray, yellow, white ?
I say no, it’s no I say !
They are the color of the universe, strands of thread sewn in a tapestry, woven like a weaver with a masters hands .
The color of their weaving we may never truly understand but in the instant of our leaving.
By: Kayleen West.,
on 10/23/2008
Although I sleep restfully these days, I sometimes go through patches of sleeplessness, as I did last night. I eventually got up around 4am and sat outside. I found myself looking up at the sky in awe. Last night was so clear you could see millions of shining stars and now and then I could spot a shooting star.
Recently I watched a video called “How great is our God” by Louie Giglio, in which the enormity of our planet was demonstrated with imagery beyond comprehension. The sizes of some planets are enormous and dwarf the planet we call home. Some planets literally make our earth look like a pin prick on a medicine ball. I marvelled at the incredible space before me and the thousands of stars that have been created. I thought to myself how incredible our creator really is and wondered (although hard to comprehend) if the stars were there to demonstrate how big God really is. Then I thought to myself, that although we are so small, God has made us in His image; complex and potentially astounding beings. The presence and achievements of some human beings impact this world tremendously. We all have so much potential but how much do we waste?
All of us could confess to wasting time, relationships, opportunities, gifting and talents. With each day we are blessed, we have a choice to use it well or to waste it. Every hour we make a decision to be productive or not. It may not be a concourse decision but we still choose.
I would consider myself a fairly self-motivated person, however I thought about how much of my life, has been squandered or mismanaged. How much better could I live my life if I took the time to appreciate the days given to me more and reflected more on how I spend them; what my true priorities really are? If we truly value time, then surely we would use it better, and for greater good in our lives and the lives of others we love.
Although sleepless nights or restlessness can put us in a place of discomfort at times, I often wonder if this is a positive thing. If our mind is active and needs to process matters, then surely surrendering to this time, treating it as an opportunity to reflect would produce revelations and possibly solutions to our wonderings. Often we insist on filling all our time with business and noise or distraction but are we wasting golden opportunity? I know for me these times often result in awareness, revelation or problem solving. If I didn’t have quiet moments of reflection my journey would be slower and more challenging than it need be. Perhaps I need even more?
By: Rebecca,
on 7/9/2008
Experimental philosophy is a new movement that seeks to return the discipline of philosophy to
a focus on questions about how people actually think and feel. In Experimental Philosophy we get a thorough introduction to the major themes of work in experimental philosophy and theoretical significance of this new research. Editors Joshua Knobe and Shaun Nichols have been kind enough to explain this all in simple terms below. Joshua Knobe is an assistant professor in the philosophy department at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Shaun Nichols is in the Philosophy Department and Cognitive Science Program at the University of Arizona. He also is the author of Sentimental Rules and co-author (with Stephen Stich) of Mindreading. Be sure to check out their Myspace page and their blog.
The reason the two of us first started doing philosophy is that we were interested in questions about the human condition. Back when we were undergraduates, we were captivated by the ideas we found in the work of philosophers like Nietzsche, Aristotle, and Hume. We wanted to follow in their tracks and think and write about human beings, their thoughts and feelings, the way they get along with each other, the nature of the mind.
Then we went to graduate school. What we found there was that the discipline of philosophy was no longer focused on questions about what human beings were really like. Instead, the focus was on a very technical, formal sort of philosophizing that was quite far removed from anything that got us interested in philosophy in the first place. This left us feeling disaffected, and a number of researchers at various other institutions felt the same way.
Together, several of these researchers developed the new field of experimental philosophy. The basic idea behind experimental philosophy is that we can make progress on the questions that interested us in the first place by looking closely at the way human beings actually understand their world. In pursuit of this objective, practitioners of this new approach go out and conduct systematic experimental studies of human cognition.
For example, in the traditional problem of free will, many philosophers have maintained that no one can be morally responsible if everything that happens is an inevitable consequence of what happened before. But the entire debate is conducted in a cold, logical manner. Experimental philosophers thought that maybe the way people actually think about these issues isn’t always so cold and logical. So first they tried posing the question of free will to ordinary people in a cold abstract manner. After describing a universe in which everything is inevitable, they asked participants, “In this Universe is it possible for a person to be fully morally responsible for their actions?” When the question was posed in this way, most people responded in line with those philosophers who claimed that no one can be responsible if everything is inevitable. But the experimentalists also wanted to see what would happen if people were given cases that got people more emotionally involved in the situation. So they once again described a universe in which everything that happens is inevitable, and then they asked a question that was sure to arouse strong emotions. It concerned a particular person in that Universe, Bill: “As he has done many times in the past, Bill stalks and rapes a stranger. Is it possible that Bill is fully morally responsible for raping the stranger?” Here the results were quite different. People tended to say that Bill was in fact morally responsible. So which reaction should we trust, the cold logical one or the emotionally involved one? This is the kind of question that experimental philosophy forces on us.
But that’s just one example. If you want to learn about more of the experimental studies that have been done, you can take a look at the recent articles on experimental philosophy in the New York Times and Slate.
By: Cassie,
on 6/25/2008
Richard Dawkins is the bestselling author of The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion. He’s also a pre-eminent scientist, the first holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, and is a fellow of New College, Oxford. His most recent book is The Oxford Guide to Modern Science Writing, a collection of the best science writing in the last century.
This is the fourth in our series of podcasts. Dawkins has talked about a wide range of scientists before, and now he introduces us to Fred Hoyle, one of the astronomers who originally proposed the steady state theory of the universe. The steady state theory may have been disproved, but Hoyle’s contributions to science–and science fiction–still remain.
Transcript after the jump.
DORIAN DEVINS: Outside of the realm of biology, you have a lot of physicists and mathematicians as well, and it struck me that you have Fred Hoyle in here—a lot of people may not be familiar with Fred Hoyle.
RICHARD DAWKINS: Yes, Fred Hoyle was an English astronomer, astrophysicist. He was one of the three physicists who proposed the steady state theory of the universe, which is now out of fashion. Indeed, it’s almost certainly wrong, disproved by the evidence. But it was a very, very interesting theory. According to the steady state theory, there never was a beginning to the universe. The universe has always been in existence; and the expanding universe, the galaxies pulling apart, that is true, but the gaps between the galaxies get filled with spontaneously created new matter, so there are new galaxies being created in the gaps that are left as the other, older galaxies pull apart. Now, that theory is wrong, but it was never obviously silly. You might think “Well how on Earth can matter just spontaneously be created?” And Hoyle’s point was well that’s no more odd than the idea that it should be spontaneously created in the first place, at the time of the Big Bang. So it was an interesting theory; its now been disproved. He had another great claim to fame, which was that he worked out how the elements, the chemical elements, are formed in the interior of stars. We now know that in this case, Hoyle was absolutely right, that all the elements apart for hydrogen and helium I think, are made in the interior of stars. And we’re all made of star stuff, that was the poetic phrase that Carl Sagan used to quote. I think maybe he got it from Joni Mitchell or the other way around. But anyway, that all comes from Fred Hoyle. He was also a science fiction writer. His first science fiction book, The Black Cloud, is a wonderful story. I mean it’s just a feast, it’s just a riveting science fiction story marred by the fact that its hero is such a deeply unpleasant character. And all the heroes of Fred Hoyle’s science fiction books are the same deeply unpleasant character, you can’t help wondering where that unpleasant character came from.
By: Garden Painter Art,
on 4/24/2007
Good Morning:
Another lovely day here at "The House of Wlassak". I'll be off for a busy day of running around. I must go to the post office and then to the grocery store.
Here's my newest aceo collage print in My Etsy Shop.
Guardian Of The Circus Diver
I've been thinking lately about the fact that so much of my art seems to be influenced, accidentally I might add, by circuses and carnivals. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't mean circuses such as Ringling Bros. or any such nonsense as the stereotypical "clown". I actually loathe clowns! But more about the colors and the almost lost and vagrant feel. Maybe it's the fact that I work with vagabond and orphaned photos. My work always seems to have a sense of homelessness. The characters feel somewhat like misfits.
My dolls are mostly from "The Circus Series". They have included a trapeze artist, a "fat" lady, a Jester and a Jesterette, a circus tiger and, one of my favorites: "Pid and Pod, the raw outsider multi-sex Siamese Twins".
Pid and Pod the multi-sex siamese twins:
Let me show you what started me to thinking about my circus influence this morning:
Siamese twin Cosmos:
Yes....that's right. A flower. A siamese twin Cosmos growing in my front garden. Beautiful even in it's differences. A misfit of a sort.
Looking back over the course of my "life in art", I have always been influenced by the lowly and bizarre. Hoping to bring out a beauty in it's differences. I can take a picture of a perfect Cosmos any day, but to capture the image of the misfit is what I long to do.
That being said: Here is a fascinating and fabulous book about a circus family called Geek Love.
I won't even begin to go into detail. Let me just say that it is chock full of intriguing and sometimes sadly grotesque "performers". BUT...and this is a huge issue of importance for me, it is NOT depressing. There's a fine line between interestingly freakish and depressing. I don't like depressing circus stuff!!
So, today's post comes to you courtesy of a quiet double-headed Cosmos growing in my front garden.
Until Tomorrow:
Kim
Garden Painter Art
gnarly-dolls
Donna,
You have such a wonderful sense of humor. Please continue to redefine scientific discoveries “your” way. Thanks!
Yep. I’m proud too.
I already knew what a genius you are! 😍
I’m in the black hole too, Donna. Maybe I’ll bump into you there.
I was told in my college astronomy class that anyone who entered a black hole would be pulled and stretched until they are as flat as a flitter. Well… they didn’t use the word ‘flitter”, but I know it’s what they meant. I feel that way when revising a lot of times! :)