thought for the day/Venice

Image Credit & Copyright: Ignacio Diaz Bobillo

There's been many Lagoon nebula pictures through the years; this is just the latest one. Since Venice is built in a Lagoon, I thought I'd go ahead and post this latest pretty good amateur photo.


". . . as the work of man, science is subject to his arbitrariness and to all the imperfections of his mental powers. There would essentially be no more science for a man gifted with an unbounded understanding- a man for whom the final conclusions, which we attain through a long chain of inferences, would be immediately evident truths." - Richard Dedekind

I've argued the dark ages were brought about by an anti-Greek knowledge, and pointed out some of the history of how that Greek knowledge was brought about into Europe again - through the Arab Spanish Andalucía around 1060A.D. One light of the dark ages was Venice.

Well, I don't think the Venice we see today was built pre- a 1000A.D.  But, the founding and growth of Venice was influenced by the Barbarian destruction of Rome and Italy.

This is the first major building of Venice, the Torcello church on the Torcello island.

The Venicians would go on to build in the lagoon lots more great architecture(in the form of Christian churches).  Saint Marks Cathedral is probably the greatest.

Apparently, the Venicians were told that Saint Marks bones were in the city of Alexandria.  They went to Alexandria and brought those bones back to Venice and Saint Marks cathedral. Now, what were Saint Mark's bones doing in Alexandria of all places?  Could the Gospel of mark have been written in Library of Alexandria?

The Venicians profited one from salt trade and two the crusades. It was after the crusades that Venice started becoming what we see today. They brought back these Roman horses.  I guess these were original Caesar horses.

Venice was plundered by Napolean Bonaparte for his war to rule the world.  The horses were taken to France, but then later returned.

Venice was where Marco Polo came from.  Marco Polo went to tour as far East as he could.  He was to gather as much information about what's East of everything the Venicians know about.

Venice was also home to some of the events surrounding the life of Galileo.  Some say one of his big mistakes was leaving Venice and hanging out on the mainland where Rome could get their hands on him.

Venice was a world power up to the Portugal/Spain, and then French and English plundering of the Americas around late 1490. Before then, Venice coins were the market standard.  Venice coins have been found as far as China.

Venice was also the worlds first representative democracy with a system of checks and balances.  They are the worlds oldest Nation.

After the discovery of the Americas, Venice became more of a pleasure capital.  They were known as the brothel of Europe where princes got their education.  They're pretty much still that way. They now have a university dedicated to figuring out how to keep the sea from swallowing up Venice.

-------------------------------------science/technology extra

Mostly just dna-nanotech again!  Researchers's have combined dna-nanotech with temperature sensitive smart materials to control chemical reactions. Using Temperature-Sensitive Smart Polymers to Regulate DNA-Mediated Nanoassembly

We're practically in a nanomanufacturing era now.  Although a dna-nanotech era, it can do much.

Some science news, potentially anyways, is gravity meters detecting gravity waves is imminant .  This is the second announcement of the same breakthrough in a month; they're obviously excited about it.

Another exciting astronomy news is the Russian Spectr R interplanetary radio interferometer.  They say it will go into full science mode in late august(whatever that means, it must mean 'soon'! It will still be in reduced duty cycle until October.  Well, it's a big project.  It's coming(vastly greater radio astronomy).

-19oct2013 edit

A technology the Venice people had that I've learned of recently is mirror making. They apparently started making the best mirrors around 1200 A.D.  They put the manufacturing of mirrors on an isolated island and kept it a secret.  This was just one of the sources of revenue that made Venice what it was then and now.