Here's a pretty good article to explain/appreciate category theory. Often-times, mathematicians call their theories by names that hides the amazing theoretical structures they are - such as group, ring, field. Article here --> Categories: From Zero to Infinity
Time and consciousness solved? Or, at least a good hint of how consciousness works. Article here --> time and consciousness
Consciousness as anticipation. I still like my idea of knowledge and consciousness. If one learns of something, then one becomes conscouse of it. I wrote of this awhile ago. It's probably buried deep down on this blog. I just bring it up to suggest that consciousness as something more complicated than just this or that solution.
- I've put more exciting new science developments in the comments section . . .
"According to Holder one of the essential characteristics of the mathematical method can be described as building new notions as superstructure to notions present at a certain stage, in the following sense. The notions and methods applied at a certain stage are envisaged as objects of the mathematical investigation at a higher stage. For instance: one applies a certain algorithm or method of proof, and afterwords one considers the scope and the limits of the method, making the method itself an object of investigation. From this, Holder concludes that it is impossible to comprehend the whole of mathematics by means of a logical formalism, because logical considerations concerning the scope and limits of the formalism necessarily transcend the formalism and yet belong to mathematics." - Otto Holder(through Van Der Waerden).
This quote is more Van Der Waerden than Otto Holder; so, I don't know how much to really comment on it. The original thoughts are in German. There's certainly some truth to it. For instance, at one time number was a whole structure of counting method. Next, it's abstracted and used as an object in a higher mathematical universe(that of algebra). I'm thinking that these methods are like Jacob Bronowski's "inferred units"(in his Origins of Knowledge and Imagination). Jacob is always pointing out that the relations of mathematical concepts are 'action verbs" and not 'is' statements. But, there is equality in mathematics as well.
As for the last part about mathematics cannot be encompassed in logic. That depends on what you mean by logic. Not to mention what one values. If one values a finite set of axioms that can prove an infinity of truths, then no, logic cannot encompass mathematics. But, if one likes an open consistent mathematics, then a little perspective suggests that logic has it's place, although one changed from an Euclidean, or even a Pythagorean viewpoint of symbolic logic.
"Science is a world view based on the notion that we can plan by understanding." - Jacob Bronowski
One of the last major additions to my "Gospel of Truth" is the evidences preserved in the old testament about magic. As one can see, the evidences suggests there was a kind of movement to eliminate the previous world of magic. Likewise, in the new testament, I find evidence in the Pauline epistles for efforts to ban the Greek sciences and philosophy. But, the religious efforts to do so clearly could not. Although, due to taking over the Roman empire, they did thrust Europe into a thousand years of dark ages. Jacob Bronowski finds in his "Magic, Science, and Civilization" evidence that the magical world couldn't be thrust away so easily as well.
In fact, Jacob Bronowski shows that the mathematical science world may have been inspired by the failures of Magic to accomplish it's goals - to control nature. Jacob quotes a Pietro Pompanazzi, who lived around 1460 to 1520, and was part of the Bologna school(if there's any readers who may have seen the James Burke "The Day the Universe Changed" episode 2 before that series . . . and the Connections series . . . was pulled down from youtube) . . .
"It is possible to justify any experience by natural causes and natural causes alone. There is no reason that could ever compel us to make any perception depend on demonic powers. There is no point in introducing supernatural agents . It is ridiculous and frivolous to abandon the evidence of natural reason and to search for things that are neither probably nor rational." - Of Incantations(here, through Jacob's "Magic, Science, and Civilization"s book
Also, in episode 3 of James Burke's "The Day the Universe Changed", James mentions the Medici as taking kind of center stage of the Italian Renaissance wealth. Jacob Bronowski notes that a Cosimo Medici( o.k. a quick wiki search suggests he was the first Medici) translated and printed out many books on "black magic" trying to find a way to learn the universe. He had a secretary, a Fecino. Copernicus was influenced to his sun-centered cosmology by a little book by Fecino - of the Sun. Then in quick succession, lots of people were publishing books on 'white' magic versus 'black' magic. A Giambattista della Parta, in 1558, published "Natural Magic." By 1620, Francis Bacon makes his famous quote, "Knowledge is Power."
Bacon's "Knowledge is Power" doesn't mean something political. He's saying mathematical/science knowledge is the way to understand nature - not magic. Magic tried to use spells and such to control . . . to gain power over nature. Jacob points out that in magic, one often tries to control nature by having power over it and rewinding it back. He points out the backward broomstick you see in some pictures of witches. And then, there's the famous biblical passage of Joshua making the sun stop and turn back.(I subtly remember a Genesis book passage about turning back the mechanism of nature; it's an idea a bit like turning wheel backwards from what it was doing before; the magicians hoped to by able to do that to nature). Around renaissance time, people were coming up with a different idea - to learn nature, one must become harmonious with it. Padua university intellectuals started thinking mathematics was the key to tapping into this harmony of the universe. Pietro also studied at Padua.
Jacob Bronowski also notes that Kepler was also influenced by magic about his idea of gravitation. He tried to understand nature by both what magical knowledge tried to accomplish things, and the way mathematics tried to accomplish things. He tried to understand the orbits of planets by means of the five platonic solids. Because they could be embedded in one another, they might be the key to the different size orbits of the planets! He of course saw the Tycho Brahe data and came to understand/appreciate a principle of science - when the data says no, discard the theory.
Kepler also had an idea of gravitation he got from magical thinkers. Kepler got his idea from a Nicholas of Cusa . . . who got his idea from a Pico Della Mirandola(who also had this idea that mankind is unique because it creates) . . . who got his ideas from a Dionysus(whom turned out to be a fake named person and stole his ideas from someone else back in 500 A.D. Christianity). The idea is that everything attacts because love permeates the universe. Everything has love(is that true? what about hate?). The quote . . .
"I transform the lover into the beloved and the beloved into the lover. The lover becomes the beloved because the lover dying, lives in the beloved. And the beloved becomes the lover for he learns to know himself in the lover and gets to love himself through the lover. And while he is thus loving himself in loving the lover he loves the lover who himself has become the beloved."
This magical passage shares a striking similarity to the vague statements that can prove anything. As I've mentioned here and there, Kurt Gödel published his "Incompleteness/Inconsistency" proofs of axiomatic systems. He basically says, a consistent finite set of axioms cannot prove an infinity of truths(consistent statements). But, an inconsistent finite set of axioms can. Above we have a magical passage that can prove anything and everything.
It also seems similar to the Bishop of Constantinople Gregorius of Nyssa quote that I've quoted many times thoughout this blog. See perhaps my Sophis/Silas post. But, I've mentioned these things recently as well.
Around Renaissance times, clearly, as indicated above, people were tired of so such unwieldy/non-constructive thoughts, and found the answer in mathematics.
- Oct 18, 2016 additional thoughts . . . magic should be viewed as an effort to learn the universe without the hard mathematics way. It's "black" magic. The mathematics of tens of thousands of years to three and four thousand years ago was not advanced enough to answer some of the simplest questions. Some questions are just not approachable; or, sometimes, there were mathematical answers, but the mathematics was too hard for many; so, many tried to come up with 'magic' supernatural solutions. Magic and religion really are efforts to circumvent the hard mathematics way, and get at nature without blood/sweat and tears. They want an easy way to understand things - not having to actually learn anything.
- There's ideas that are about defining things clearly and openly - like mathematics. Then, there's ideas that try to evade thinking. If you confront someone about something, if you try to show logic and facts that reveal things, most people(in my experience) use all kinds of evasive language. I've posted before about a remarkable historical piece of evidence for this in Bishop of Constantinople Gregorius of Nyssa noticed this type of thinking and complained,
"People swarm everywhere, talking of incomprehensible matters, in hovels, streets and square, marketplaces, and crossroads. When I ask how many oboloi I have to pay, they answer with hairsplitting arguments about the born and the unborn. If I inquire the price of bread, I am told that the father is greater than the son. I call a servant to tell me whether my bath is ready; he rejoins that the son was created out of nothing." And I've pointed out some evidences using the movie "The Da Vinci Code." I could point out some personal examples(from my family), but I've recently found some more interesting historical evidences for this . . . - One is in Copernicus's "On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres" book. It's noted many times that a person, not so close to Copernicus, put in a preface to his work(Copernicus saw his book on his deathbed) that the ideas of the sun centered solar system(they thought it was the universe at the time) is "just" a mathematical fiction.
People who play these 'acting up' games often use this dismissive "just" language. Oh, it's just this or that; don't mind it.
- More historical evidences - John Milton in his "Paradise Lost", book VIII,
"Sollicit not thy thoughts with matters hid,
Leave them to God above, him serve and feare;
Of other creatures, as him pleases best,
Whatever plac't, let him dispose: joy thou
In what he gives to thee, this Paradise
And thy fair Eve: Heav'n is for thee too high
To know what passes there; be lowlie wise:
Think onely what concernes thee and they being; Dream not of other Worlds."
I put the last statement in bold. Not that there's plenty of Nazi "only think what I tell you to think" before that last statement; but, it is the most clear statement
Milton visited Galileo, when under house arrest - to experience, to see, and to gloat over him.
- As stated, I've posted about this before in my "Sophie and Silas" and later the "Agnostic and Irreligious" post.
This is the best science documentary finding since the "Physics and Reality" documentary I posted maybe a year ago or so. This one goes back to 1969. It may be Carl Sagan's first appearance in television documentaries as well. I'd say it's his best!
This video documentary captures the realization that the predictions of Einstein's General Relativity - Black holes and the Big Bang cosmology - are real.
Major developments after this video were the x-ray telescopes finding Cygnus X-1 in the 1970s - a black hole in orbit around a star . . . 1983's experimental confirmation of electro-weak unification. It wasn't till the recent Higgs confirmation and then the detection of gravitational waves that something comparatively big to the Wilson/Penzias experimental discovery/confirmation of the cosmic background radiation. What could be exciting in the near future? How about the unification of Quantum Mechanics with General Relativity?
Black holes and the Big Bang cosmology confirm Einstein's General Relativity; they also strongly suggest that quantum mechanics and General Relativity must be combined. Physicists have recently gotten excited about the the quantum entanglement description of spacetime. Since, as stated, quantum mechanics and General Relativty must be combined, and quantum entanglement has been confirmed(by Alain Aspects 1980s experiement) and is part of quantum mechanics, then seeing how quantum entanglement relates to General Relativity must bare fruit.
"Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality." - Hermann Minkowski
Albert Einstein at first said, replying to the quote above, actually, "I can't recognize my own theory, after the mathematicians got their hands on it." And so the legend that Albert Einstein was no mathematician grew.
Was he strictly a mathematician? No, he wasn't; he mostly just used mathematics already created to get his physics created. It's known that David Hilbert helped him out on his General Relativity. How much is unknown, as David Hilbert just gave all credit to Albert. Fact is though, the mathematics and mathematicians had been leading towards Relativty theory for a long time. Bernard Riemann's work on "Riemann surfaces." These can be thought of at a certain level as splitting a sphere into two sheets based on the positive/negative roots of a square root. Then, there was Lorentze's and Poincare's work. Their work was in response to the Micheleson-Morley experiment disproving the existence of the Aether. A substance that was suppose to carry the light waves through the cosmos.
- Some more mathematics, in relation to Jacob Bronowski's ideas. Jacob Bronowski points out that vague concepts are defined and expanded/generalized by creative analogy. In Einstein's General Relativity, Galileo's and Newton's for that matter, notion of inertia is generalized. Galileo's famous observation that different mass bodies fall at the same rate is explained by General Relativity. The inertial mass is equivalent to the gravitational mass. Well, they weigh each other out. This is actually kind of analogous to Galileo's contraditons/thought experiment . . . that if you attach two bodies together, the logic says on the one hand, that the two bodies will accelerate faster because you have more mass. On the other hand, the lighter mass will pull back on the heavier mass. Well, Einsten's equivalence shows that while the cannonball has more gravitational mass, it also has more inertia; so, they cancel out in a vacuum. In a vacuum, the cannonball and the feather fall at the same rate.
It's one thing "to say" that there is no objective view, that all views are 'just different', but when one view says "she's thanking us for burning her/ we don't learn because there is no change(the Buddhist monks at Mt Everest)", and the other says "nothing is sacred including what I say(Carl Sagan quote; essentially what science says). . . . Buddhism supposedly says "believe nothing on hearsay. Do not believe in traditions because they are old, or in anything on the mere authority of myself or any other teacher"; but, as we've seen in this video, Buddhism has no set scripture.
I've noted before about some of his connections. I pointed out how in the mechanical universe, King George of England was noted as preferring round knobs on top of lightning rods over sharp points is why we have round knobs, and for no other real reason. And that, some of James Burke's connections are of this type. Others are as I've described in my generalization of Jacob Bronowski's findings of the nature/origin of mathematical knowledge. For this, I have to thank James Burke for his great works!
Image(s) credit(s) - ESA/NASA Hubble Space Telescope
The Apollo 1 capsule fire is often brought up when viewing some Apollo/Saturn V, and moon landing videos. There's not much more significant to be said, other than, an accident happened, and everyone just kept on going because, what else are they going to do but their jobs?
What's really remarkable about the Apollo 1 capsule fire was that it was so stupid! How does a team of hundreds of thousands of engineers miss such an obvious possibility of a spark causing a fire . . . in a pure oxygen/high atmospheric pressure confined space . . . get missed?
It's one thing to not question the beliefs that one is conditioned to believe in; but, when something so obviouse as the above case happens . . . this says a lot about humans inability, quite often, to step back and try to see what staring them in the face!
In computer program, one tests the program to see if it runs as they thought it should. Quite often, it doesn't. The programmer built based on unquestioned assumptions. The programmer often goes about his/her life acting like they're normal and smart and all. They're friends pat them on the back in approval of their behaviors. Few try to write a program or do some kind of mathematics, and so they don't ever get hit in the face; they don't learn that they need to stop themselves in their tracks . . . look around . . . and see what's going on. Even those who do, are not well rounded enough to see a danger . . . or even a new idea to ponder.
- on a personal note, I met these Chaffee twins/girls in junior high school -way back in like 1989. We were in science class and they were oddly fascinated in my reading of "The Exploding Universe." It's an alright general science book, covering astronomy to particle physics and cosmology. It even starts from an account of the Greek ideas of five elements - fire, water, earth, air, and quintessence. They thought I was smart. They're hair was like some red haired afros! By high school, they learned to change their hair a little bit and look a little sexier. We ran cross-country and track and field together during high school.
I was sitting in the grass, reading some book before either cross-country or track workouts, and it hit me. Chaffee was one of the astronauts who died in the Apollo 1 fire. I looked right up at them, and they just walked away. They saw in my eyes that I just hit on something! The coach was a bit struck by this as well. He read they didn't want to share or talk about it. He somehow knew as well! These two Chaffee girls are descendents of Roger Chaffee. They were like, "oh boy, he figured it out!"
They of course never knew him personally. Maybe they felt like they didn't need to brag about such a bad way to go.
Bill Joy wrote an article that was never adequately responded to(that alone is telling of the intellectual state of affairs, of our top minds.) -- > Why the future doesn't need us until now . . .
"
Hello Wired.com,
I've finally gotten around to reading the entire Pauline exegesis of Bill Joy's "Why the future doesn't need us" . . .
Bill Joy say how he's always been into the ethical dimensions of science and technology; yet, he doesn't mention Jacob Bronowski, James Burke, Alvin Toffler and so on - Arthur C. Clarke/ Isaac Asimov
- They(Bill Joy and the Unabomber) dystopian nightmare considers two possibilities 1) the machines are given complete control to make all decisions(where do they get the data from to make decisions?), or 2) people maintain control. They say the A.I. will probably decide it doesn't need humanity anymore and get rid of humanity. If Humans maintain control(keep themselves in the loop seems to be the way to say it), they'll be an elite. Maybe they keep a few humans around as pets; maybe they don't and wipe out all they don't like. But, there's a third possibility which seems to be a real no-man's land that they don't want to talk about - merging with the machines. Evolving in a way that combines both. Bill Joy mentions that Ray Kurzweil champions the this third possibility in his "Age of Spiritual machines." He later notes that a Danny Hillis also believes in this. But, Bill Joy essentially says this impossible and dangerous anyways.
Bill Joy says merging with machines will take away the biological nature of mankind. Here, I actually agree with him. I believe in chaos theory of consciousness and free will. But, I don't think that merging with machines actually takes away from the biological part of mankind - if done right. Today's calculators/computers are essentially technological augmentations. I suggest nothing more. One can imagine wearing a headset kind of like a heads up display to further augment mankind without disrupting the biological nature of human intelligence. There's more things like genetic engineering that also don't take away from the biological nature of human intelligence.
Bill Joy also brings up extreme individuals. I agree that enhanced bullies and violent people presents a bit of a problem. But, then again, there will be enhanced rational people as well. If he wants to fight enhanced terrorists and other such people, I'd suggest he become merged! In fact, I'd suggest that he criticize irrationality, or shut up. Seems that Bill Joy and co . . . Eric Drexler, Chris Pheonix, Ray Kurzweil, the whole lot of them don't want to fight irrationality. In fact, they're willing to do whatever they can to keep disturbing truths(like religions are bullshit) from being pointed out.
Bill Joy says the Unabomber is criminally insane, yet he agrees with his logic. Then, he says we should relinguish science. Mankind is defined/distinguished from the other life on earth by its dependence on science/technology for survival. To relinquish it is insanity. Combining this with his bah-humbug attitude towards the third possibility, suggests an emotional problem with science winning out by solving all human medical problems, including aging by means of A.I./Nanotech and so on.
They love to talk about the coming science/technology dystopian future. Bill Joy speaks of "Murphy's law" - what can go wrong will go wrong. Mentions his mother prevented him from getting a ham radio because "he's anti-social enough." Mr Joy says technological augmentation will destroy democracy. He says this will destroy equality. He clearly doesn't understand that equality in American Democracy doesn't mean everyone is the same - like some technological dystopian nightmare, manufacturing the same person out of a assembly line. Bill Joy is really going crazy here. What all this has in common is that he refuses fight irrationality. He wants to fight dangerous individuals from becoming superhuman, which is fine. But, notice he never brings up who is the irrationalists.
Bill Joy says science makes one anti-social. This is as bad logic as scientists don't appreciate art. No, it's the other way around. Arts and 'social people' don't appreciate science/technology. If they did, maybe they could socialize with scientists. This is proof Bill Joy is an ass kisser to people who twist things around to cover up their own problems.
Everyone wants to suggest some science/technological dystopian nightmare. That of manufacturing everyone the same, controlling their minds. But, wait a minute; isn't that what religions are? Don't all these people believe in their religions because they are conditioned from birth to believe what the clergy tells them to believe? Isn't that what all those medieval abbeys, high up in the foothills were doing? Closing themselves off from the world . . . walking around mumbling hymns, with blank stares like the Easter Island statures? Then he mentions Murphy's law. Well, I agree again; let's consider Murphy's law. What can go wrong will go wrong. If we let anti-science irrationalits(the real extreme individuals), lock ourselves up here on Earth to prevent anyone from getting away(I pointed this out to Chris Phoenix, and his reaction was to play silence games), then those who don't want their ideas challenged will take over, implant 'believe in our religion' chips, and end the human adventure to learn the universe and survive in the universe.
Bill Joy considers the go out in space option. He then says, "isn't there the danger that we drag our problems with us out to space?" I rest my case! If Bill Joy wants to fight dangerous individuals from becoming superhuman, then fight irrationality, or shut the fuck up! He uses the same logic the Christians used in the City/Library of Alexandria, "did not Greek science sap the vitality of the Roman empire" Therefore God exists, knowledge is evil, lets close ourselves up on some mountain from the world."
- Note, I've yet to actually e-mail wired magazine this response of mine. I should probably generalize my response based on my postings about Sophie and Silas below, and even my Gospel of Truth(still in progress; yes, I have ideas of adding more material and editing/smoothing it up).
There's been all kinds of scientific/technological advances since my last post. One sticks in my mind - programmable rna vaccines. If true, this solves cancer, viruses from the common cold to HIV and even Ebola! Sounds impossible? Read this --> Engineers design programmable RNA vaccines
I've heard of this finding of Homer in the Gospel of Mark(primarily); but, I didn't worry about it. I considered it secondary to astrotheology. And, I still do. But, "TruthSurge" gives enough to prove that the Gospel of Mark does a certain amount of rewriting, recoding up Homer's Odyssey. What really got me excited, and I'm sure I'll self-interpolate and later re-edit my Gospel of Truth again, is that of the Gemini twins. When I tried to read the Gospel of Mark to see if it follows the pattern of the twelve constellations(and it does for the most part), I always found the Gemini twins to be a little bit of a stumbling block. This Homer findings in Mark solve this problem!
TruthSurge has another video series, "Jesus:Hebrew human or Mythical Messiah" where he, for the most part, goes over the Earl Doherty theory of the New Testament and Jesus Christ. In my Gospel of Truth, I point out two passages, one from Paul(whoever he is), and the other from James the Just(presumably) where they're calming down those who they're trying to convert, and saying Jesus Christ will come. I point these two passages out to point out that if Jesus Christ had already come, they wouldn't be saying, "don't worry, my midrash will work". TruthSurge picks out all 41 instances of these; hence, showing that this disproof of Jesus Christ are not just two little passages; its' a major theme of the New Testament/Pauline letters.
TruthSurge also has a two video series on James the Just. He doesn't mention Robert Eisenman; but, the findings amount to the same. That Jesus Christ is a Hellenistic sungod overwright of James the Just.
- "I haven't read the book. I for one have been using the Christ killer charge against the Jews as proof that Jesus Christ never existed! Does it make sense? Why would Jews kill a Jew, king of the Jews? And! proclame Caesar as their ruler(in Gospel of John). For me, this has suggested that Jesus Christ never existed; so, when Gentiles(Greeks/Romans and anyone else not Jewish) went to the Jews to ask about him, they said, "I don't know what you're talking about." This is in the Gospels. So, the Gentiles said "Christ killers"; you guys(Jews) are spoiling our fun! There has to be a "Sun" of God; otherwise, how else are we to be saved?(Epistle of Barnabas quote).
About that Sun of God in quotes, here's what I found after reading the collective, extant works of Melito of Sardis - "that this was the first-born of God, who was begotten before the sun." This is not the first quote I've found of Christians and church fathers saying things like, the twelve followers of Jesus Christ are the twelve zodiacal constellations. I'll dig them out if you want me to.
Of further note about Melito of Sardis, he was in contact with a Marcus Aurelius. This is not the first time I've wondered if maybe the Gospel of Mark is written by Marcus. Marcus Aurelius also presumably conversed with Justin Martyr. What for? Maybe I need to read Marcus to find some clues. But really, reading the Melito of Sardis wiki is highly intrigueing.
Here's a Jew, Christianized . . . "Trained in the art of rhetorical argumentation, Melito is believed to have been greatly influenced by two Stoic philosophers in particular, namely, Cleanthes and Poseidonius. Also proficient in the allegorical interpretation of Homer" Melito Wiki. Gospel of Mark has stoic poetic puzzles Jesus uses to sound sophisticated. And Homerisms. . . . then again, Melito was writing under the influence of the John Gospel tradition. So, the Gospels had to be known before him. Of course, like Marcion's Gospel of the Lord, and his Pauline cannon, the literature was edited by many hands as they passed down from one Christian writer to another."
And then I noted that that this, along with Melito mentioning before the sungod part(actually meaning, Jesus Christ came before the sun and everything else), Christ killers, is the end part of a speech he made . . . in front of Antoninus Caesar - this guy, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoninus_Pius What's interesting here? Antoninus Pius is father of Marcus Aurelius. check out, http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/melito.html Scroll down to the first roman numeral. That's the beginning of his speech to Antoninus Pius. The passages I mentioun are in part V.
I should say that I've suspected Marcus Aurelius before because of some artwork in a Christian temple of Revina. - see this wiki of Galla Placidia, who moved the capital of Rome to Ravenna, and may have invited Germanic barbarians to help sack Rome, to defend herself from Pagans, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mausoleum_of_Galla_Placidia
Also check out this John Romer Testament video on youtube, where you can get a good look at this Placidia tomb/Christian temple, and see, that the four Gospels are mentioned, and the Mark, representing the Gospel of Mar is spelled Marcus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpjyJIfQ5nM
And . . . Antoninus Pius predecessor was Hadrian, who was the last to sack Jerusalem. Antoninus Pius further was the son of a Titus Aurelius Fulvius, who supported Vespasians bid to the Imperial thrown! Vespasian, of course, was named the savior of the Jews at the end of Flavius Josephus's "The Jewish War." The Vespasian who sacked Jerusalem the first time in 66 A.D.
Neanderthals appear to have arranged a bunch of stalagmites in circles about 170,000 years ago.
Before cars, airplanes, computers and so on, the high technology of the day tended to be architecture. Another interesting technology was boats. I often like to say that the first architecture were temples for pre-historic people, really, because making some kind of architecture back then was like them making their own caves(shelter/home). Making their own caves also represented their ability to take control of nature to a certain extent.
The Neanderthal construction above is interesting for that reason; but also, the fact that they used pre-made elements from nature. They had not yet figured out how to shape, maybe even engineer the material itself(to be stronger, or more flexible and so on).
Note for the day, Gospel of Truth has been updated - see the "latest Gospel of Truth" below 1/21/16 post.
The latest research on Gobekli Tepe seems to solve the problem of the hunter/gatherer to agricultural civilization problem.
This was the hardest problem of archaeology for sure.
When Gobekli Tepe was discovered, we knew archaeologists have dug something up. I for one noted that astronomy still wasn't part of human consciousness. It's still animals that were the central concern of the cave painters up to thirty thousand years ago.
The video above, National Geographic's Cradle of The Gods, shows that storing of food was the innovation that allowed the hunter/gatherers to get enough people for a long enough time to build Gobekli Tepe. Surelly, after a certain amount of time at Gobekli Tepe, some seeds sprouted, and they took notice. When they did, people experimented with agriculture and moved away from Gobekli Tepe.
The transition from hunter/gatherers to agricultural civilization appears to connect Gobekli Tepe to Catal Hoyuk - 7000 B.C. Gobekli Tepe goes back to 12,000 B.C.
Catal Hoyuk still has animal paintings similar to the cave painters,
But, they do have a preoccupation with bulls heads statues,
which we find a cultural continuity with the Minoan bullheads of the late Bronze age culture on the Crete island,
and at Catal Hoyuk, we find the venus figuries,
Curiously, we haven't found these Venus figurines at Gobekli Tepe. Who knows?!
The questions become how do we get from Catel Hoyuk to the Egyptians/Mesopotamians. How about mathematics being the difference between the past cultures before them? Well, it's one major difference.
- Looking up hunter/gatherers, I found the Sentinelese people <--link here, researchers suspect these people are cultural relics of the first Homo Sapiens coming out of Africa almost a hundred thousand years ago. They speak a language that is unclassified.
"tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscious approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death." - Leonardo Da Vinci
- note for the day - my latest "Gospel of Truth" has been updated - the 1-21-2016 post
"The investigation of these theorems is of great service both for the synthesis of problems and the determinations of limits of possibility. On the other hand Nicoteles, on account of his controversy with Conon, will not have it that any use can be made of the discoveries of Conon for determinations of limits: in which opinion he is mistaken, for, even if it is possible, without using them at all, to arrive at results relating to such determinations, yet they at all events afford a more ready means of observing some things, e.g. that several solutions are possible or that they are so many in number, and again that no solution is possible; and such previous knowledge secures a satisfactory basis for investigations, while the theorems in question are further useful for the analyses of determinations of limits. Moreover, apart from such usefulness, they are worthy of acceptance for the sake of the demonstrations themselves, in the same way as we accept many other things in mathematics for this and for no other reason." - Apollonius of Perga
Image credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Acknowledgment: NASA, ESA, T. Do and A. Ghez (UCLA), and V. Bajaj (STScI)
Lot's of exciting science and technology news,
This is a successful solar sail from the Japanese. Launched in 2010, Ikaros sailed to Venus. It's been at Venus recently sending images. Some other nice scientific accomplishments is Ikaros measuring gamma ray polarization and setting stricter limits on CPT violation - a symmetry of the standard model of physics.
I'm a little surprised we haven't seen more solar sails deployed; but, rest assured, we will in the future. Solar Sails can dramatically reduce the cost of sending space probes all over the solar system. With lasers, they can go outside of the solar system, and perhaps visit more pluto objects like Eros and Sedna, which are pointing the way to another planet lost way outside of the Solar system . . .
A little while ago, Mike Brown did some statistical analyses to show that the distribution of trans-Neptune objects like Sedna, and there orbits are like less than .01 or something like that. Well, he's found another object out there, and redid the analyses, the statistics are now --> the article, More evidence for Planet Nine as odd celestial alignment emerges says .007 was the previous calculation, now it's even better to like .0001. I remember seeing elsewhere.
So, solar system science is still exciting, Human space colonization is getting just as exciting!
Here, SpaceX lands there first stage rocket on a barge. One of the hardest landings they wanted to accomplish. This will allow them to make more missions possible.
This wasn't the first, but it's one of the hardest, and on this mission, they sent a Bigalow inflatable space habitat to the International Space Station. Bigalow inflatable space habitats can make human space stations far less expensive - in orbit around worlds, on worlds like the Moon, Mars, Ceres . . . Speaking of Ceres, not sure If I've shown this before,
- Back here on Earth, and probably used in space colonies of the future as well, is Synthetic biology making a computer program that compiles what you want into a dna code, entered into a cell, and the cell does what you want it to. Meaning, you speack your human language into a typewriter, it compiles it into dna code, and you make the cell's do what you want. -- > article here, A programming language for living cells They've been pretty close to this for a year now. They've made great progress. And now, progress can only accelerate. Imagine using A.I to make even better high level computer languages for synthetic biology!
- I should show Jeff Bezos "Blue Origins" reusable space rocketry efforts as well! This is just as exciting as SpaceX imo!
- Some Anthropology ideas, How Human Sacrifice Propped Up the Social Order <-- article here, This article is arguing human sacrifice creates social class structure. I'd argue the other way around, agriculturalism created social class structure like never before(there probably was some division of labor in hunter gatherers before, but in a pinch, I'm sure a woman can pick up a spear and stick it in an animal), between those who farmed, those, who did military duty, those who were the ruling class, and those who wrote the official records and so on. But, soon the ruling class found it convenient to make up religions, like human sacrifice to keep the lower/ruled classes believing in what they do - in this case by scaring them.
Human sacrifice is one affect of the ruling elite. But, Sir James Frazer shows in his "Golden Bough", in the 1800s that some societies made a 'king for a day' culture, where a person becomes king; the King promises them food and crops for the next year; but, if it doesn't happen, the society kills the King and puts some other puppet King till the crops do come!
- The CERN/LHC has of course made the most exciting particle physics discovery since the early 1980s electro-weak w/z exchange particles - the Higgs particle that has something to do with mass(I don't think they totally know how that works). But, here --> Physicists build ultra-powerful accelerator magnet , physicists show they can upgrade their LHC machine to even higher heights. Already this year, they've made upgrades which seems likely they'll make new discoveries. Some physicists are pretty excited with what they might be discovering already this year - dark matter? Some particle that the Standard model can't predict? Anyways . . .
The current superconducting magnets were an accomplishment from what came before, they were made of niobium titanium. They reached 10 teslas(the Earth's magnetic field has a strength of .4 teslas). This new superconducting magnet reached 20 Teslas. It's made out of another substance - niobium-three. They had to bake and shape this new material at over 600 degrees celcius; which would translate into a very high Fahrenheit temperature. They have to make something very large out of something very brittle, and then somehow they're going to operate this in a superconductor with 20 teslas without breaking it. As I recall, the LHC can already melt tons of copper a second if they wanted to; that's how much current flows through the LHC a second when it's turned on. I guess we'll see!
- Another great technology is the James Webb space telescope. They're beginning assembly/testing and launch in like 2017. They'll put it much further out in in Earth's orbit than the Hubble space telescope - the Lagrange points; gravitational stable points between the Earth and Moon. Here, --> Lockheed Martin Readies One of the Most Sensitive IR Instruments Ever Made for NASA Telescope , they talk about an I.R. detector that works in concert with the segmented main mirror. They tested the I.R. detector that it works to nanometer precision of infrared wavelength, as the segmented mirrors move according to what's desired to focus on(that's almost as remarkable as the gravitational wave detectors and their squeezed quantum states!).
The Science/Technology is exciting, and with the SpaceX/Bigalow space launch, assuming no world war 3, mankind is almost secured in the universe. With Humans in more than one world, a single asteroid blast can't blast us back to the stone age. A nuclear war on one planet can't take out the other(you'd like to think such political situations wouldn't occur on two or more worlds at the same time!) Out in space, mankind will be so concentrated on getting the science/technology right, they won't have time for superstitions/fears that mankind grew up with. We can detach ourselves from that. It will take the Earth's inhabitants millions, if not billions of years to finally admit to the wrong thinking the priest/kings of the past used to control the lower classes.
"Now, the cowardice(if we may be permitted to use this term) of ordinary minds has gone to such lengths that not only do they blindly make a gift-nay, a tribute-of their own assent to everything they find written by those authors who were lauded by their teachers in the first infancy of their studies, but they refuse even to listen to, let alone examine, any new proposition or problem, even when it not only has been refuted by their authorities, but not so much as examined or considered." - Galileo Galilei
The above is a video documentary about Venice. As the video itself explains, Venice evolved out of the dark ages, to escape the Germanic barbarians. It was called the crown jewel of the middle ages. People will often deny that the European dark ages ever happened. Venice is one place they'd point out. Other places would be the Byzantine empire, and maybe even the Arab Spain of Andalucia. One thing to note quickly, is that Venice was partly protected/paid for by the Byzantines.
Also, much of the wealthy architecture came after the European crucades from the 1000 to 1400s. Those are interesting dates, because the dark ages are really divided into early and later dark ages. These are defined by the Europeans discovery of the Arab mathematics/science texts in Arab Spain/Andalucia. These turned out to be Arab translations of Greek mathematics. Then, the end of the 1400s was the end of the dark ages and the beginning of the Italian Renaissance. The Venice was partly built on blood money. This is some of what's not mentioned in the Venice documentary above.
I've mentioned some of Venice before when mentioning some remarkable things found by explorers of the Americas. Previous explorers had traded Venice products with the Native Americans. Venice was put in it's place by the explorers of the Americas(English/French/Spanish/Portuguese). Venice had conquered the late middle ages, but after the Explorations/Exploitation of Native American wealth, Venice became a relic of a glorious past, and a pleasure capital of the world(something Europe kind of it today; it's the vacation capital of the wold right now). One major last thing not mentioned in the video documentary above is that much of the drama of Galileo took place in Venice!
--> Galileo wiki link . I read Galileo's "Two New Sciences" many years ago. The book is amazing for all the mathematical proofs and mathematical ideas like the equivalent infinities of the even numbers to the natural numbers. I don't remember it all, when writing this. But, I did just finish reading Galileo's "Dialogue concerning the Two Chief World Systems". I also recall through just seeing Jacob Bronowski's "Ascent of Man" videos that Galileo had created scientific instruments other than a telescope. The wiki link above mentions those.
I mean most people here that Galileo rolled balls down inclined plains, and so what? Maybe they see the connection between that and different mass bodies falling at the same rate in a vacuum. This is remarkable enough; but few realize the amount of other science and mathematics he did. Not to mention that Galileo represents the end of the Greek Aristotelian and Ptolemaic physics. Isaac Newton physics, which came just after Galileo's death goes way beyond Galilean physics, but 1) Newtonian physics is built on the foundation of Galileo's work, and 2) Galileo as indicated above did so much already.
I find it often stated that Galileo didn't know the calculus. This is for the most part true; but, he did know average speed in his "Two New Sciences" book, and he knew one half of the fundamental theorem of the Calculus. The fundamental theorem of the Calculus relates, indeed equates the differential calculus of instant velocity on one side, with the integral/sums calculation of smooth surfaces on the other side. He knew that distance is the area of velocity, with respect to time. Fermat, in France around the same time as Galileo came up with the tangent method to find instantaeneous velocity; this would be the other half, and both insights found there way to England just a generation later for Isaac Newton to put them together.
Some of what's noted in Galileo's "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems" is the Americas . . . he argues for the sphericity of the moon based on its brightness! He considered brightness reflectivity on smooth and rough surfaces to deduce that the moon is spherical . . . when he talks about how in a pendulum, the time of the swings are the same whether the swing is long or short in terms of a ball moving in a vacuum hole through the Earth . . . Galileo constantly finds wonder and the excitement of discovery in logic and scientific facts throughout his books. . . . he points out that an infinit circle has equivalence to a straight line . . .
He makes simple geometric proofs of some physics that the Greeks could have done, but just didn't(not even Archimedes). He shows how smaller motions would take greater energy to keep an equivalent mass attached than the bigger circular motion(one can think of smaller and larger wheels, or even planets in motion around the sun here); this he does by showing the secants pointing towards the central point shared by the two larger wheels are of different lengths; for the smaller wheel, the secant is greater than for the larger wheel. Let me put it this way, if you have tangent lines to a curve, one can see the curve moving away from the tangent line; in the smaller curve, this moving away from the tangent line is greater than for the larguer circle.
. . . he gives the mathematics of parallax, and argues that the two new stars(we would call them supernova today) as seen by Kepler and Tycho Brahe in their lifetimes(he mentions Tycho Brahe's great experimental work) must be very far away . . .
He also shows frustration in a couple of pages towards the end that would land him in trouble.
His arguing for Copernicus puts him in a bad standing as it is. But with the need for cannons, the church had to relent enough as it was. Galileo didn't need to spout off like he does in a few places in his Dialogue book. . . . on page 380(of my copy anyways), he uses the word "imbeciles; he says people are too stupid to even acknowledge that they are stupid . . . on page 380 he uses the word simpletons, and a main character of his dialogue is "simplicio"; "Indeed, the simpler they are, the more nearly impossible it will be to convince them of their own shortcomings." He argues that the problem is philosphers(which he's suggesting or linking with pseudoscientists here) is they don't know enough mathematics.
But, Galileo was not perfect. He tries to solve the tides in the last day of his Dialogue book, and as the wiki article points out, he argued in an earlier book, the Assayer, that comets are just figments of your imagination! Well, he corrects this in his Dialogue book.
It's been suggested, in Koestler's Sleepwalkers, that Galileo's biggest mistake was leaving the safe confines of Venice for Flourence, from where the catholic church caught him, and turned him in to the inquisition.
NASA, ESA, CXC, NRAO/AUI/NSF, STScI, and R. van Weeren (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) Acknowledgment: NASA, ESA, and J. Lotz (STScI), and the HFF team
"Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned." - Daniel Dennet
astro picture for the day/ "In Search of . . ." as a window onto the mythmaking mind
Mankind is defined and distinguished by the other life on Earth by it's dependence on science and technology. I've tried to show the growth of knowledge and mankind's exploration of knowledge.
There was mathematical knowledge early on, but progress towards more mathematics was slow. After one learns of a few numbers, maybe some arithmetic, there doesn't seem to be much left to do . . . but make mythology. I'm suggesting here that mythologizing religions partly comes out boredom. There was simply no other way to excersize the imagination back then. Some didn't know any mathematics at all.
It seems that mythologizing stopped far back in the past, after Christianity was created. But, there's the case of Islam which was created six hundred years later. But, also, in the twentieth century and really back to Kepler.
As soon as Copernicus was confirmed by Kepler and Galileo, some, in this case Kepler himself, started mythologizing. Kepler wrote of going to the moon in a dream.
A famous example is War of the Worlds, published in 1897. Almost exactly after that, UFO mania started. Well, the U.F.O. wiki, finds the first use of unidentified flying objects to 1878. The person says a remarkably fast flying balloon. Well, as I was going to say, U.F.O's started when space rockets were starting to be known. Here, we have a case of people reporting U.F.O.'s around the time when flying balloons were common. Either way, we have people being fantastical and mythologizing. This mythologizing would push very far.
Rod Sterling, famous for the twighlight zone, and Star Trek stars William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy helped narrate a great window on the religious and mythmaking minds - the "In Search of . . ." series and William Shatner later with MYSTERIES OF THE GODS (1977).
The first video that documented these ideas(I've yet to address them), Rod Sterling's "In Search of Ancient Astronauts"
The first interesting part of these videos is the blending of science and mythology(in this case - U.F.O.s). They go to astronomical telescope observatories, including radio telescopes. Rod Sterling's "In Search of Ancient Astronauts" interviews Werner Von Brawn, who explains to them "Fermi's paradox." "Fermi's Paradox" involves the Big Bang cosmology. Fermi actually comes up with this in the 1950s, before the cosmic background radiation discovery/confirmation of the Big Bang cosmology over the steady state cosmology in the 1960s. So, Fermi's paradox is doubly remarkable. Fermi notes that the Big Bang cosmology suggests the universe is between ten to twenty billion years old(Hubble Space telescope has narrowed this down to like 13.82 Billion years old. It's now measured down to some decimal points . . .), and Fermi notes that the recent radioactive dating of the geologic history of the Earth makes the Earth 4.5 billion years old. Taking just the Earth's life history, and the Big Bang cosmology, and the abundance of stars in our galaxy alone, suggest, that Extraterrestrial Civilizations should be billions of years older, and should have gone spacefaring all over the galaxy for billions of years. They should have visted the Earth . . . a long time ago. Well, the U.F.O's mythology in the videos above go far beyond that.
They go to all the great ruins of the past - the Egyptian Pyramids, the Mayan Pyramids, and Easter Island. And they say, humans couldn't possibly have made these, ancient Aliens must have come down and made them and/or taught humans how to make them. Just making a quick disproof; why didn't they build them out of daimondoid materials(diamond, the hardest material in the universe, by physics), or some more exotic material?
One big point I'd like to make of what these U.F.O believers are doing is saying, "we don't know"; therefore, U.F.O's exist and must have visited the Earth a long time ago. Similarly, god believers often say, "we don't know how the universe works, how the brain works", or "our theories are imperfect"; therefore, God exists - submit your souls and believe in "my church and god."
In rewatching Rod Sterling's "In Search of Ancient Astronauts", they show video of a hunter/gatheror tribe who made a straw airplane as a god, because they saw one come over them. It was the first airplane they had ever seen; they never thought that such a thing could ever exist, so they idolized it, made it a statue god. So, this is valuable video of the mythologizing/religious mind in more than one way!
These videos make for great viewing of the great accomplishment of mankinds past - both Egyptian and Mayan temples.
Image credit: APEX, the Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment telescope
Quote for the day,
"I prefer to accent “unity” rather than “generality.” But for me these are two aspects of one quest. Unity represents the profound aspect , and generality the superficial." - Alexander Grothendieck
As Velleman points out in his "How to do Proofs", proofs starting from conclusion are by means of reexpression(I'm not sure who first came upon this proof technique/insight actually) . . . here, we see Algebraic Geometry being reformulated many times; this cuts through and unifies much mathematical history from the 1800s up to . . . Alexander Grothendieck.
I posted some about the recent rumor that LIGO has in fact detected gravitational waves(two black holes spirally into each other in fact), a few posts down. I point out some of the remarkable technology of it. Before I found the above Science magazine announcement, I had seen tweets(yea, that era is when I wrote this!) from LIGO that they've upgraded to this Advanced LIGO. So, expect a revolution in astronomy . . . now!
I've pointed out in my post about the film "The Da Vinci Code", observational proofs of how people play vagueness games(Monday, June 8, 2015 post of this blog); ways of avoiding facts starring them right in the face. It's almost like when someone gets caught red handed, they start lying left and right. Some more evidences, besides the abundance of poetry for thousands of years of humanities existence, are the religious concepts of agnostics and irreligion. Irreligion is a new one - actually about five or so years ago. But, between agnostic ideas and this new(primarily European) irreligion concept, suggests a mentality of avoiding an issue they are uncomfortable dealing with.
It's often said that 'when we're busy checking exeryone at the terminals for guns and such, that terrorists have accomplished their objectives". To make a free society live in fear. And so they have. But, my point here is that what I like to call the dark side of the force(all these vagueness games), or religion has accomplished it's goal - to instill fear of questioning everything. There's that great Buddha quote,
"Believe nothing on heresay. Do not believe in traditions because they are old, or in anything on the mere authority of myself or any other teacher."
But, this is not what religions, in particular supernatural religions, want, and religious concepts like Agnostics/Irreligion is proof of the bullies that religions are.
- I can go even further.
. . . and to go a little further. Chris Phoenix and many 'futurist' nanotechnologists/A.I.(anything futuristic tech) loved . . . for a time . . . to point out Murphy's law. Murphy's law states that 'anything that can happen, will.' But, as time has gone on, when rationalistic thinking on transhumanism, and scientific humanism evolved, for a time at the Extropy institute, people like Chris Phoenix and Ray Kurzweil and Eric Drexler and the whole gang, said, ope, let's 'compromise.' I guess something going wrong is o.k. for the human race now. Down went all the logic and observable facts that the human is defined and distinguished from other life by its reliance on science/technology; let's go medieval! Murphy's law? Never heard of it!
Compromise, to be more straightforward is another vagueness game used by someone who is scared of someone else.
10199 Chariklo <-- wiki link. The recent Pluto excitement makes me think about what else can be just as exciting. There's some obvious Neptunion worlds like Sedna, and now quite probably some large rocky world even further out than Sedna - 5 Questions and Answers about the Proposed Ninth Planet . One world that is perhaps getting little attention now with Sedna and whatever they end up calling Planet9(I keep hoping this is the Nemesis world, but there's reason to think maybe not. Planet9 is in the Kuiper belt, and considerably smaller than what was proposed to disturb the Oort comet cloud comets much further out in the solar system) is Chariklo. As the wiki explains, this is the largest of the Centaurs(asteroids and comets that have accumulated in a stable lagrangian point out between Saturn and Uranus). And, it turns out to have a system of rings around it! As asteroid/comet with rings!
Marvin Minsky did a lot. He innovated a confocal microscope, or improved it. His wiki shows that he served in the navy for a time as well. As I like to point out, Arthur C. Clarke mentions him in his 2001 movie. Well, I guess Marvin counciled Arthur in the book. I'm not sure what. Marvin Minsky saw that Eric Drexlers(and Richard Feynman's) nanotechnology can go a long way to making genuine A.I., and of course supported Eric Drexler's efforts more so than many throughout the years.
Image credit: NASA & ESA, Jesús Maíz Apellániz (Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia)
The absence of any mention of Mary Mandelene by Paul in his epistles is more conclusive proof that the Gospels were written after the Pauline epistles.
link -->New World monkey The mystery here is how did monkeys get from the old world(Africa/EurAsia) to the New World Americas? The link indicated points out the wildest idea, that monkey's actually rafted their way across the, then, smaller distance between Africa and South America. The other alternative is that there must have been a land bridge due to lower sea levels. In the end, they say the Monkey's rafted from one island to another! The question becomes, why don't they raft around anymore?
I recently saw a tweet of a Gorilla sized Lemur. Below are pictures of today's Lemurs.
These were along the line to primates millions before the first bipedal Australopithacines. A fossil a Archaeoindris,
The gorilla sized Lemur, or Archaoindrus appear to be related to the also now extinct Sloths.
When I heard of this, I wanted to get back to the Balboa park 'Museum of Man' museum in San Diego, where I remember seeing this giant something. I finally did so a couple of days ago. What I found was a Gigantopithacine.
Gigantopithacus,
In fact, this is a picture of the Museum stuffed thing(I'm forgetting what they call stuffed animals) in the San Diego museum of man. What the info they give on it says is that it went extinct 400,000 years ago . . . contemporaneous with Homo Erectus!
The Wiki points out something even larger - Gigantopithacus Blacki. Once again, a picture from the wiki of Gigantopithacus,
The wiki says that G. Blacki went extinct in Asia 100,000 years ago - contemporaneous with Homo Sapiens!
- A primate species on the path towards science/technology dependent species like 'Homo Sapiens'? - Pan troglodytes verus, the latin name of a western Africa subspecies of Chimpanzee does a few odd behaviors compared to the rest.
I for one have noted that Homo Erectus and other related species of it's time, lived in caves, and that most primates I've ever heard of don't. Cave dwelling seems to be a behavior suggesting unusual intelligence over other life(obviously there's things like bats, some cats/bears and so on); but, living in a cave can provide a place to think where on the outside, one is so busy worrying about this/that predator, or bugs or weather . . . in a cave, one doesn't have that much to worry about. The mind can wander around a bit more.
This cave dwelling chimpanzee also uses spears. I've heard of little sticks to dig out ants, and I would argue that is technological(some people don't); but a spear? That's a bit more of a technology that is indisputable.
Another odd behavior noted in this wiki --> Pan troglodytes verus - another species evolving down the line towards science/technlogy intelligence? , is swimming. Most primates, if one of their's falls into a lake, will just scream and run around on the outside, and the one that falls in the lake just drowns. Swimming in a lake is a sign of intelligence; the abilty of a species to do something it's not evolved for.
This is a picture of a Saturn asteroid/moon. It's actually considered a sheppard moon; it makes for one of the major rings of Saturn. Scientists theorize that the structure of the Saturnian rings is much the same, only smaller moons shepparding thinner rings . . . all the way down to the smallest particles of the rings!
"in a way, it's more freer . . . in a way, it's more noble, and more admirable to give point to our lives ourselves rather than to accept it from some external source." - Steven Weinberg
- found some interesting lost technology history - the Photophone
Here's a picture of a Photophone. It was invented by Alexander Graham Bell around 1880. It used modulated light to transmit sound. It was the first wireless communication - back in 1880! There was a mirror that flexed based on sound applied to it. This created modulated light sent to another photophone. So the transmitter was non-electrical; but, the receiver was electrical. The receiver would take in the modulated light and create a modulated electrical signal, which then gets turned into sound.
The Marconi radio started to surpass the Photophone around 1897. The Photophone was still in military service during the 1950s.
For more on the Photophone --> Photophone Wiki , there's also a link of the connections between the photophone and sound recording. Remember the silent films?
- and there's new more or less advanced technology/science to report. By now, maybe you've heard that scientists are excited about the possibility of detecting gravity waves.
Gravity waves have been known to exist since around 1989, when astronomers found that gravitational energy was being sapped by light energy released by two pulsars orbiting one another . . . well, looking up this wiki, Gravitational-wave astronomy , I found that astronomers detected the effects of gravitational waves in 1974, by a Richard Hulse and Joseph Taylor; they were awarded the Nobel prize in 1993! Since then, astronomers/engineers have been building new laser gravity meters . . .
They tried building hugh metal cylinders first;
Joseph Weber and his gravity meter. The wiki on Joseph shows that he managed to get NASA to put a gravity meter on the moon, on the Apollo 17 mission! When you look at this gravity meter, and learn about today's efforts, you just know that he wasn't successful.
- this seems to be a famous picture of one of LIGO's mirrors . . .
I've heard these mirrors bury any astronomical telescope mirror ever constructed in reflectivity. Wish I could find that article again. Physicists also made a major technological breakthrough to make "Advanced LIGO." I've found that the optics have a roughness of .16 nanometers(that's less than the width of an atom). But the squeezed light is really exotic physics/technology
LIGO, and any interferometer gravity meter(this is what's different between Joseph's gravity meter and gravity meters like LIGO) must isolate as much environmental noise as possible - thermal and . . . quantum noise. Quantum physicists found a squeezed light that allows them to reduce quantum noise. The squeezed light comes from making a squeezed vacuum state from which the light comes. LIGO then injects these squeezed light/lasers into the vaccum tubes where they bounce off those super fine mirrors.
Advanced LIGO, as they call it, can detect pulsars and other gravity wave phenomenon out to the distance of the Virgo galaxy cluster. The 21st century should have much the same excitement of 'the newest, most grandest gravity-meter than burries the earlier gravity meters in how far it can see dectect gravity waves' in much the same way we saw telescopes of the 20th century!
Gravity-meters can test inflationary Big Bang cosmology, string theory and look at the physics of black holes, pulsars, supernova like never before!
- right on the heels of Advanced LIGO, is LISA, a space orbiting gravity-meter interferometer that is scheduled to go in orbit in 2017! If we're getting gravity waves detection now, 2017 will be really exciting! Then there's the James Webb space telescope to be placed at one of the lagrangian points.
- here's a pretty good article on the quantum physics and inflationary big bang cosmology science that gravity-meter interferometers will allow us to explore! --> Sounding out the Big Bang
