Sunday, July 31, 2011
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Friday, July 29, 2011
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
astro picture for the day
Thursday, July 21, 2011
youtube for the day/Arthur C. Clarke's mysterious world/Ancient wisdom
As Mr Clarke says, the Antikythera Mechanism for sure is ancient wisdom that changed our view of back then; the others are questionable. The Antikythera mechanism is one proof the dark ages happened(as is the fact that things like Euclid's elements were 'radical' knowledge to the Europeans of a 1000 A.D. as i've already commented on this blog before).
As Arthur C. Clarke points out further, where would humanity be if the dark ages hadn't happened? Today, we're in the beginning stages of nano-manufacturing and the associated nanotechnologies, quantum computers, chaotic dynamics controls, artificial intelligence. If the dark ages hadn't happened, we'd either have destroyed ourselves a thousand years ago, or, we'd have settled many thousnads of stars by now; we couldn't imagine the science and technology we'd have right now.
This point is a main point of today's intellectuals interested in Extraterrestrial civilizations. The industrial era of humanity seems to be a small window. We either graduate to nuclear fusion, nanotechnology, or perish. This would be the same for other intelligences around the cosmos. So, we shouldn't expect to detect any radio emissions or thousands of them.
While this may be true, the fact that we see nothing but natural phenomenon, stars, galaxies, and nebula seems a little bit weird. We don't see any engineering on a large scale, and yet, with the knowlede of the capabilities we ourselves most likely will be on in just a century(actually decades now), not to mention that most Extraterrestrial intelligences must be thousands if not millions of years beyond us, the universe should be swarming with intelligence. Maybe they choose to not reveal themsevles and talk to us? Maybe, but, what about interstellar wars between them? We don't see any evidence of that either!
I for one fear that most intelligences get sucked up with religions, and the religions say to not go much further down the road to science enlightenment. I've already seen that most nanotechnologists think we should lock up humanity here on earth untill everyone is converted to christianity.
As Arthur C. Clarke points out further, where would humanity be if the dark ages hadn't happened? Today, we're in the beginning stages of nano-manufacturing and the associated nanotechnologies, quantum computers, chaotic dynamics controls, artificial intelligence. If the dark ages hadn't happened, we'd either have destroyed ourselves a thousand years ago, or, we'd have settled many thousnads of stars by now; we couldn't imagine the science and technology we'd have right now.
This point is a main point of today's intellectuals interested in Extraterrestrial civilizations. The industrial era of humanity seems to be a small window. We either graduate to nuclear fusion, nanotechnology, or perish. This would be the same for other intelligences around the cosmos. So, we shouldn't expect to detect any radio emissions or thousands of them.
While this may be true, the fact that we see nothing but natural phenomenon, stars, galaxies, and nebula seems a little bit weird. We don't see any engineering on a large scale, and yet, with the knowlede of the capabilities we ourselves most likely will be on in just a century(actually decades now), not to mention that most Extraterrestrial intelligences must be thousands if not millions of years beyond us, the universe should be swarming with intelligence. Maybe they choose to not reveal themsevles and talk to us? Maybe, but, what about interstellar wars between them? We don't see any evidence of that either!
I for one fear that most intelligences get sucked up with religions, and the religions say to not go much further down the road to science enlightenment. I've already seen that most nanotechnologists think we should lock up humanity here on earth untill everyone is converted to christianity.
astro picture for the day
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
major Astronomical observatory breaking news/Russia launches Spectre R radio telescope
http://www.asc.rssi.ru/radioastron/index.html
A radio telescope with like thousands times the resolution of the Hubble space telescope; i can't believe there was no talk about this before launch; there was no news about this at major science internet news sites either! That's almost as big news as the capabilities of this radio telescope!
A radio telescope with like thousands times the resolution of the Hubble space telescope; i can't believe there was no talk about this before launch; there was no news about this at major science internet news sites either! That's almost as big news as the capabilities of this radio telescope!
youtube for the day/ Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious world/ The Nazka Peru lines and figures
The video gets into some stuff which is kindof not as interesting; but, the Nazka lines and figures that can only be seen by flying over them are remarkable indeed. I leanrned of them from Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious world of course!
astro picture for the day
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
youtube for the day/ Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious world/Riddle of the Stones
Arthur C. Clarke tries to see what he can see of those mysteries that border respectability. He's not trying to turn away from science but to give those vague borderline mysteries a chance. He tries to see what's possible. He even tries to criticize the standard respectable explanation of Stonehenge; that it is a solar observatory(at least in this episode). In the end, these video's serve as the rationalists responce to the fears and superstitions of mankind.
Here, he finds some stuff that maybe non-England living people wouldn't know about. I know of some stone circles in Sandinavia and Carl Sagan in his "Cosmos" video's shows a beautiful Native American Indian "stonehenge."
The question that seems to me to come up is why did these people stop progressing? I think they stopped exploring. Religion took over and everybody just kept coming to their stonehenges over and over again; they never learned anything new - for thousands of years till the Romans stomped them out.
Here, he finds some stuff that maybe non-England living people wouldn't know about. I know of some stone circles in Sandinavia and Carl Sagan in his "Cosmos" video's shows a beautiful Native American Indian "stonehenge."
The question that seems to me to come up is why did these people stop progressing? I think they stopped exploring. Religion took over and everybody just kept coming to their stonehenges over and over again; they never learned anything new - for thousands of years till the Romans stomped them out.
astro picture for the day
This is the large magellanic cloud; a small dwarf galaxy only seeable in the southern hemisphere.
Monday, July 18, 2011
astro picture for the day
I remember the Galileo spacecraft took the first asteroid picture in the Nineties I do believe. That would be Gaspra. The photo is exciting. We were to soon get photos of more asteroids in the years since. Some had remarkable surprises like some asteroids had asteroid moons(never heard any sci-fi think of that one!)
I'm not sure if Gauss discovered Ceres and/or Vesta; but, i know that he did some astronomy on of them; in his time, the asteroids were a bit of a mystery. Were they elaborate worlds like the Earth, Mars, and Jupiter(and the others)? Eventually, it was noted that most of the asteroids seemed to reside in orbits between Jupiter and Mars; that certainly seemed peculiar! That's probably as fascinating as the Asteroid were for awhile. Today, we've found 'apollo' asteroids; asteroids that come from the asteroid belt and cross the orbit of the Earth. Astronomers today believe that most meteorites found on earth actually come from Vesta!
Vesta is the second largest Asteroid in the same Asteroid belt as Ceres. The spaceprobe that is going to study Vesta for a year, will rocket out of orbit of Vesta and go into orbit around Ceres which is even larger!
considering Vesta's remarkable round shape, I'd say that Vesta is at the limit of being called an asteroid versus a planet(something with enough gravitation to make a round shape). In looking at the first photos of Vesta(after hundreds of years of seeing images of the planets, and many decades after sending proves to all the major planets of the solar system), I can't help noticing the swirly patterns. This reminds me of some such patterns on a moon of like Satern, or Uranus, or Neptune. I should look it up; but, there's a moon of one of those planets that has this same pattern! This must mean something geologically speaking!
Just like going to Saturn for its rings could give a laboratory of the solar nebular that coalesed into the planets of our solar system, going to Vesta is like looking at any of the rocky planets at that growth size. It's a snapshot of the formation of a planet - frozen in the vacuum of space. I find it rather exciting! What's equally exciting is we're going to go to Ceres next, and Pluto even before then will get a new photo giving us our first look at that world as well! Pluto has one large moon and two others; it' s a four larger than Ceres like system! Pluto will be more exciting that Ceres! And then, the probe will go to taking the photo of a Sedna which is a bigger world than Pluto found recently by the Mount Palomar telescope in like the 1990! Just the astronomy of these smaller worlds is exciting over the next decade or two!
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
note for the day
Some of the videos linked from youtube have been taken down due to money/power struggles(I actually hope this is more the case than say some corrupt irrationalists who's offended by the content). Well, i say what video's I'm talking about; so, if your really interested, you'll look them up and buy them for your own.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
thought for the day/ logical disproof of the existence of god
"Men think epilepsy divine, merely becaue they do not understand it. But if they called everything divine which they do not understand, why, there would be no end of divine things." - Hippocrates of Cos. I bring this quote up again because I'm going to give my deductive disproof of the existence of god.
If god(s) are just algebraic "X"s standing for I don't know as the above Hippocrates of Cos(460 B.C.), then god(s) were first every natural thing that science didn't touch such as snakes, the wind, the stars and so on(even human consciousness). As mathematics and science progressed, there was a constant moving of these god(s) further and further away from human ability to comprehend. Clearly, those who wanted to beleive in god(s) didn't want to question these god(s) existence. These god(s) were clearly used for social political control.(I need to insert any number of quotes about the inventing of gods and hell for social control here; it's in my "gospel of truth" which starts this blog)
Anyways, these god(s) were moved to places where the then mathematics and science could not get to them; first to the heavens(in the Bible, the god is always from 'on high'), then to infinity, and now to extra dimensions; and of course, the excuse for god(s) existence is always ignorance.(I need to insert the corintians quote here that I always get from christians). The thing is that in the 1800s, George Cantor showed that there's always an infinity larger than a given infinity; so, which size infinity is your god?
Now, the effort to move god to impossible to comprehend heights goes in two directions. One is infinity and that of being everything; the universe is god; but, we all know that this all leads to contradictions. The other way leads to fewer and fewer properties. What does 'no properties' mean? That's right, it means non-existence.
------------------------------------------------the above is a redo of what I wrote below; i think I'll keep the below stuff for now--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'd like to further note that Kurt Godel published around 1931 his inconsistency/incompleteness theorems. He said a consistent finite set of axioms cannot prove an infinit set of theorems. You can go ahead and put more axioms in to prove ever more theorems, but this process cannot ever finish(today, mathematicians rightfully so do not consider this a problem; more like a reason for joy; mathematical adventure will never end!). On the other hand, an inconsistent set of axioms can prove an infinity of theorems? If you look at the quote about god being put in place of everything considered mysterious, historicaly, it's clear that God is an algebraic X standing for "I don't know" or even "I don't want to know". God is the vague inconsistent concept that proves everything without explaining anything.
If god(s) are just algebraic "X"s standing for I don't know as the above Hippocrates of Cos(460 B.C.), then god(s) were first every natural thing that science didn't touch such as snakes, the wind, the stars and so on(even human consciousness). As mathematics and science progressed, there was a constant moving of these god(s) further and further away from human ability to comprehend. Clearly, those who wanted to beleive in god(s) didn't want to question these god(s) existence. These god(s) were clearly used for social political control.(I need to insert any number of quotes about the inventing of gods and hell for social control here; it's in my "gospel of truth" which starts this blog)
Anyways, these god(s) were moved to places where the then mathematics and science could not get to them; first to the heavens(in the Bible, the god is always from 'on high'), then to infinity, and now to extra dimensions; and of course, the excuse for god(s) existence is always ignorance.(I need to insert the corintians quote here that I always get from christians). The thing is that in the 1800s, George Cantor showed that there's always an infinity larger than a given infinity; so, which size infinity is your god?
Now, the effort to move god to impossible to comprehend heights goes in two directions. One is infinity and that of being everything; the universe is god; but, we all know that this all leads to contradictions. The other way leads to fewer and fewer properties. What does 'no properties' mean? That's right, it means non-existence.
------------------------------------------------the above is a redo of what I wrote below; i think I'll keep the below stuff for now--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And oh yes, 'god' is whatever it needs to be to
not be disproved; first the heavens(see the old testament for all kinds of 'from
above' references), then infinity, and then some higher dimensions.
To avoid the endless contradictions of an infinity all knowing god, more and more properties are taken away . . . till he's this big everything . . . nothing; that's right once this conception of god is wittled away to avoid being able to actually see this guy, he's left with no properties at all; what equals zero properties? That's right, non-existence!
To avoid the endless contradictions of an infinity all knowing god, more and more properties are taken away . . . till he's this big everything . . . nothing; that's right once this conception of god is wittled away to avoid being able to actually see this guy, he's left with no properties at all; what equals zero properties? That's right, non-existence!
I'd like to further note that Kurt Godel published around 1931 his inconsistency/incompleteness theorems. He said a consistent finite set of axioms cannot prove an infinit set of theorems. You can go ahead and put more axioms in to prove ever more theorems, but this process cannot ever finish(today, mathematicians rightfully so do not consider this a problem; more like a reason for joy; mathematical adventure will never end!). On the other hand, an inconsistent set of axioms can prove an infinity of theorems? If you look at the quote about god being put in place of everything considered mysterious, historicaly, it's clear that God is an algebraic X standing for "I don't know" or even "I don't want to know". God is the vague inconsistent concept that proves everything without explaining anything.
astro picture for the day
Monday, July 11, 2011
astro picture for the day
Pictures of the whole Milky Way band(our galaxy as seen from inside . . . where else?) are always fun!
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Friday, July 8, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
astro pictures for the day/ tycho crater from a moon portrait to the central mountain formed from the impact
Kind of like the way photographers see water droplets bouncing out of the water after a water drop impacts water, an impact on the moon was so large that it left a mountain formed in the middle of the impact crater. The bottom image is a new 2011 Lunar Surveyor image which I why I went ahead and made a three wammy astro picture for the day!
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
youtube for the day/ Things to Come - rare H.G. Wells film
I'll try to get around to some comments some other time!
Monday, July 4, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)