Random thoughts
- Sy Borg
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Random thoughts
My "random" thought for the day: I've been catching up on history and learning about the Middle Ages. In the mid-1300s the Black Death decimated European populations. The plague caused mass migrations and also freed up much previously-occupied land. The chaos broke the Catholic Church's millennium long stranglehold on societies, resulting in a profound intellectual leap with the Renaissance leading into the modern age.
It seems that the Black Death functioned in much the same way as the Chicxulub asteroid that ended the 200 million-year reign of the dinosaurs and other giant species. This allowed mammals to flourish, which also lead to a profound intellectual leap.
Quite amazing how these great cathartic events occur and play out. It's also food for thought for the future. Might we become the collateral damage for the next great intellectual advance?
* Probably not truly random, but "Chaotic thoughts" does not work :)
- JackDaydream
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Re: Random thoughts
This seems a good idea for a miscellaneous thread for thoughts which don't seem to fit in anywhere. I admit that I have a lot of chaotic thoughts, which is why I probably create so many threads. I definitely wonder where the human race is going. I find that such questions weave in and out of the thoughts which I have about my own life. Some people seem to be able to switch off thoughts but my brain keeps churning them out like a machine. I find reading as a form of meditation, although it is also a stimulus for thinking..Sy Borg wrote: ↑July 21st, 2022, 4:56 pm Sometimes random* thoughts occur that have no practical use, but they are interesting. If you have some thoughts you'd like to share, or at least get down in writing, this might be a place for it.
My "random" thought for the day: I've been catching up on history and learning about the Middle Ages. In the mid-1300s the Black Death decimated European populations. The plague caused mass migrations and also freed up much previously-occupied land. The chaos broke the Catholic Church's millennium long stranglehold on societies, resulting in a profound intellectual leap with the Renaissance leading into the modern age.
It seems that the Black Death functioned in much the same way as the Chicxulub asteroid that ended the 200 million-year reign of the dinosaurs and other giant species. This allowed mammals to flourish, which also lead to a profound intellectual leap.
Quite amazing how these great cathartic events occur and play out. It's also food for thought for the future. Might we become the collateral damage for the next great intellectual advance?
* Probably not truly random, but "Chaotic thoughts" does not work
It will be interesting to see what emerges in this thread, like a notebook for experimentation.
- Sy Borg
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Re: Random thoughts
I look to the past to see what dynamics will repeat. I think parts of humanity will transcend colonies ands integrate to the point of becoming an organism. For a billion or more years, single celled microbes formed ever more integrated colonies that became ever more like a single organism. Then eukaryotic cells emerged, basically bacteria (mitochondria) living within a larger organism. This greatly increased the amount of energy that could be processed, allowing for the building of more complex structures, and the first plants, animals ands fungi emerged.JackDaydream wrote: ↑July 27th, 2022, 5:12 pmI definitely wonder where the human race is going. I find that such questions weave in and out of the thoughts which I have about my own life.
Humans, meanwhile, are ever more being encapsulated within technologically-connected hubs, ie. homes serviced with plumbing, electricity, internet and, ever more, deliveries of food and resources. As the air heats and pollutes, as crowds build and dangers increase, people will tend to stay at home and connect to the world in an indirect way, via the s̶o̶c̶i̶e̶t̶y̶'̶s̶ ̶n̶e̶r̶v̶o̶u̶s̶ ̶s̶y̶s̶t̶e̶m̶ internet, receiving messages that will inform their decisions.
Given the vast difference between eukaryotes and prokaryotes, it's exciting to think of what may become as humanity aggregates. Alas, we will probably have about as much chance of observing, or even recognising, what we are creating en masse as cells and bacteria recognise our philosophical musings. In fact, such an emergence might not be noticed at all. We could effectively create, and be part of, a giant ultra-sentient organism/s and remain completely oblivious, carrying on with business as usual.
- Astro Cat
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Re: Random thoughts
If it were brighter, it'd appear this large in the sky:
--Richard Feynman
- Sy Borg
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Re: Random thoughts
I vaguely remember hearing a claim that Andromeda and the Milky Way are already colliding.
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Re: Random thoughts
I would guess that comes from it being really difficult to define what the “edge” of a galaxy is. It can be a real problem with the object extraction processes we use to pick out galaxies from an image.Sy Borg wrote: ↑July 29th, 2022, 3:41 am I love space stories and educational material, but I am a terrible stargazer. The coolest thing I've seen in the sky (apart from alien motherships) is the ISS zipping past the stars.
I vaguely remember hearing a claim that Andromeda and the Milky Way are already colliding.
My research uses the CANDELS survey using Hubble’s WFC3 (wide field camera), we take the images and just use software to extract the objects. We have to do special work to weed out stars (and some galaxies look pointlike so we have to manually add some of those back in).
Anyway what I was getting at is that we tend to define galaxies by their light profiles (how quickly their light drops off from the center out), so like a really important metric is R50, the radius at which 50% of the galaxy’s light is encircled by the center. We can’t just pick a certain density of dust for instance because that varies wildly and dust extends really far out, way further than you’d think from looking at an image. Same for the dark matter halo.
--Richard Feynman
- Astro Cat
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Re: Random thoughts
I used to be intimidated by the math that physics would require, so I actually started my school career in biology. I was going to do something in ecology or parasitology. Mosquitos make me think of Plasmodium falciparum (and other species), the protist that causes malaria.
Except they’re really weird protists called apicomplexans, so called because they have an organelle called an apicoplast which is probably a vestigial chloroplast obtained through secondary endosymbiosis from some kind of red algae (or so it was thought when I was still learning about biology).
Except the apicoplast isn’t quite vestigial, the protists die if something happens to the apicoplast. That’s right, since apicoplasts are basically chloroplasts, you could technically kill these protists with herbicides I guess.
Apicomplexans are some of the most interesting parasites. Aside from Plasmodium, there’s Toxoplasma gondii (that’s the one that makes rats fearlessly approach cats and can live in peoples’ brains) and Cryptosporidium (I just love saying this one’s name).
--Richard Feynman
- Sy Borg
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Re: Random thoughts
It all becomes indistinct. Same with the Earth's atmosphere, which is said to be about 100 kms but it apparently extends well past the Moon. https://www.sciencealert.com/earth-s-at ... s-the-moonAstro Cat wrote: ↑July 30th, 2022, 8:14 amI would guess that comes from it being really difficult to define what the “edge” of a galaxy is. It can be a real problem with the object extraction processes we use to pick out galaxies from an image.Sy Borg wrote: ↑July 29th, 2022, 3:41 am I love space stories and educational material, but I am a terrible stargazer. The coolest thing I've seen in the sky (apart from alien motherships) is the ISS zipping past the stars.
I vaguely remember hearing a claim that Andromeda and the Milky Way are already colliding.
My research uses the CANDELS survey using Hubble’s WFC3 (wide field camera), we take the images and just use software to extract the objects. We have to do special work to weed out stars (and some galaxies look pointlike so we have to manually add some of those back in).
Anyway what I was getting at is that we tend to define galaxies by their light profiles (how quickly their light drops off from the center out), so like a really important metric is R50, the radius at which 50% of the galaxy’s light is encircled by the center. We can’t just pick a certain density of dust for instance because that varies wildly and dust extends really far out, way further than you’d think from looking at an image. Same for the dark matter halo.
The region is called the geocorona, part of an atmospheric layer called the exosphere. It's a tenuous cloud of neutral hydrogen that glows in far-ultraviolet light.
Because it's so thin, it's been hard to measure; previously, its upper limit was thought to be around 200,000 kilometres (124,000 miles) from Earth, because that's the point at which solar radiation pressure would override Earth's gravity.
Well, according to data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) co-owned by the European Space Agency and NASA, that limit doesn't even come close. The geocorona, scientists have found, extends out to as much as 630,000 kilometres (391,000 miles).
"The Moon flies through Earth's atmosphere," said physicist Igor Baliukin of Russia's Space Research Institute.
In fact, at an average distance of 384,400 kilometres (238,855 miles), it's almost smack-bang in the middle of it.
- Astro Cat
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Re: Random thoughts
Very interesting, I was not aware of that. It’s funny how things can be so adjacent to a person’s specialty and still be outside of it, lol.Sy Borg wrote: ↑July 30th, 2022, 9:20 amIt all becomes indistinct. Same with the Earth's atmosphere, which is said to be about 100 kms but it apparently extends well past the Moon. https://www.sciencealert.com/earth-s-at ... s-the-moonAstro Cat wrote: ↑July 30th, 2022, 8:14 amI would guess that comes from it being really difficult to define what the “edge” of a galaxy is. It can be a real problem with the object extraction processes we use to pick out galaxies from an image.Sy Borg wrote: ↑July 29th, 2022, 3:41 am I love space stories and educational material, but I am a terrible stargazer. The coolest thing I've seen in the sky (apart from alien motherships) is the ISS zipping past the stars.
I vaguely remember hearing a claim that Andromeda and the Milky Way are already colliding.
My research uses the CANDELS survey using Hubble’s WFC3 (wide field camera), we take the images and just use software to extract the objects. We have to do special work to weed out stars (and some galaxies look pointlike so we have to manually add some of those back in).
Anyway what I was getting at is that we tend to define galaxies by their light profiles (how quickly their light drops off from the center out), so like a really important metric is R50, the radius at which 50% of the galaxy’s light is encircled by the center. We can’t just pick a certain density of dust for instance because that varies wildly and dust extends really far out, way further than you’d think from looking at an image. Same for the dark matter halo.
The region is called the geocorona, part of an atmospheric layer called the exosphere. It's a tenuous cloud of neutral hydrogen that glows in far-ultraviolet light.
Because it's so thin, it's been hard to measure; previously, its upper limit was thought to be around 200,000 kilometres (124,000 miles) from Earth, because that's the point at which solar radiation pressure would override Earth's gravity.
Well, according to data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) co-owned by the European Space Agency and NASA, that limit doesn't even come close. The geocorona, scientists have found, extends out to as much as 630,000 kilometres (391,000 miles).
"The Moon flies through Earth's atmosphere," said physicist Igor Baliukin of Russia's Space Research Institute.
In fact, at an average distance of 384,400 kilometres (238,855 miles), it's almost smack-bang in the middle of it.
I have a friend that I’ll call J, he’s on the solid state side of physics. When we get together we talk a lot about the department politics and physics in general, and it’s just funny to me how utterly alien our specialties are to each other.
--Richard Feynman
- Sy Borg
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Re: Random thoughts
Still, it's great that there's been an increasing tendency for science silos to compare notes, and even join fields. For instance, geobiology was a rather fringe discipline, and is only gathering popularity is recent times. I think about the difference between the first life form and the population of its non-living peers from which it emerged. I'm guessing biology's "parents" were complex cells whose replication process were almost producing viable, reproducing offspring.Astro Cat wrote: ↑July 30th, 2022, 10:39 pmVery interesting, I was not aware of that. It’s funny how things can be so adjacent to a person’s specialty and still be outside of it, lol.Sy Borg wrote: ↑July 30th, 2022, 9:20 amIt all becomes indistinct. Same with the Earth's atmosphere, which is said to be about 100 kms but it apparently extends well past the Moon. https://www.sciencealert.com/earth-s-at ... s-the-moonAstro Cat wrote: ↑July 30th, 2022, 8:14 amI would guess that comes from it being really difficult to define what the “edge” of a galaxy is. It can be a real problem with the object extraction processes we use to pick out galaxies from an image.Sy Borg wrote: ↑July 29th, 2022, 3:41 am I love space stories and educational material, but I am a terrible stargazer. The coolest thing I've seen in the sky (apart from alien motherships) is the ISS zipping past the stars.
I vaguely remember hearing a claim that Andromeda and the Milky Way are already colliding.
My research uses the CANDELS survey using Hubble’s WFC3 (wide field camera), we take the images and just use software to extract the objects. We have to do special work to weed out stars (and some galaxies look pointlike so we have to manually add some of those back in).
Anyway what I was getting at is that we tend to define galaxies by their light profiles (how quickly their light drops off from the center out), so like a really important metric is R50, the radius at which 50% of the galaxy’s light is encircled by the center. We can’t just pick a certain density of dust for instance because that varies wildly and dust extends really far out, way further than you’d think from looking at an image. Same for the dark matter halo.
The region is called the geocorona, part of an atmospheric layer called the exosphere. It's a tenuous cloud of neutral hydrogen that glows in far-ultraviolet light.
Because it's so thin, it's been hard to measure; previously, its upper limit was thought to be around 200,000 kilometres (124,000 miles) from Earth, because that's the point at which solar radiation pressure would override Earth's gravity.
Well, according to data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) co-owned by the European Space Agency and NASA, that limit doesn't even come close. The geocorona, scientists have found, extends out to as much as 630,000 kilometres (391,000 miles).
"The Moon flies through Earth's atmosphere," said physicist Igor Baliukin of Russia's Space Research Institute.
In fact, at an average distance of 384,400 kilometres (238,855 miles), it's almost smack-bang in the middle of it.
I have a friend that I’ll call J, he’s on the solid state side of physics. When we get together we talk a lot about the department politics and physics in general, and it’s just funny to me how utterly alien our specialties are to each other.
- Pattern-chaser
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Re: Random thoughts
Yes, I remember hearing a radio program on 'brown fat'. It had been thought for years that brown fat existed only in children, until one day a bio-scientist was talking to a pathologist buddy, socially, and mentioned his interest and belief. The pathologist was able to tell him, from his experience of post mortems, that humans of all ages have brown fat, and the 'accepted wisdom' was definitely wrong. Cross-discipline communication — indeed, any communication — often gives us finds that couldn't've happened in another way.
"Who cares, wins"
- Pattern-chaser
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Re: Random thoughts
What an excellent topic! And what a shame it's hidden away in the Lounge. Surely topics like this are a core part of philosophy? [Yes, such topics are, and should be, only a part of philosophy's "core".]
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- Pattern-chaser
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Re: Random thoughts
"I'm not convinced that X is TRUE",
and it is somehow received to mean this:
"I assert that X is FALSE".
Is this a 'logical fallacy'? If it is, what's its name?
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Re: Random thoughts
The Black Death affected Asia as well as Europe. The great Mongol Empire, which stretched fom Korea to Europe to Baghdad had opened up trade routes and lines of communication (an efficient mail system) throughout the known world. The Black Death destroyed these lines of communication and travel because people were reasonably leary of strange travellers bringing the plague with them. The Mongol Empire collapsed.Sy Borg wrote: ↑July 21st, 2022, 4:56 pm
My "random" thought for the day: I've been catching up on history and learning about the Middle Ages. In the mid-1300s the Black Death decimated European populations. The plague caused mass migrations and also freed up much previously-occupied land. The chaos broke the Catholic Church's millennium long stranglehold on societies, resulting in a profound intellectual leap with the Renaissance leading into the modern age.
It seems that the Black Death functioned in much the same way as the Chicxulub asteroid that ended the 200 million-year reign of the dinosaurs and other giant species. This allowed mammals to flourish, which also lead to a profound intellectual leap.
Quite amazing how these great cathartic events occur and play out. It's also food for thought for the future. Might we become the collateral damage for the next great intellectual advance?
In Europe, the labor shortage created by so many deaths helped break the feudal system of serfdom, and fueled the rise of guilds and towns. Labor -- especially skilled labor - was in high demand, and thus the power of the workers, peasants and serfs increased. The intellectual rennaisance was influenced by the Crusades and the European contact with Muslim Spain had developed in the High Middle ages (13th century). Norman adventurers conquered Muslim Sicily as well as parts of Spain, and brought troves of knollwedge to Europe. Many of the Classics were translated not from Greek and Latin, but from Arabic (the Arabs had translated them earlier).
- Sy Borg
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Re: Random thoughts
What happened after the Mongol Empire lost its grip on those regions?Ecurb wrote: ↑August 3rd, 2022, 12:14 pmThe Black Death affected Asia as well as Europe. The great Mongol Empire, which stretched fom Korea to Europe to Baghdad had opened up trade routes and lines of communication (an efficient mail system) throughout the known world. The Black Death destroyed these lines of communication and travel because people were reasonably leary of strange travellers bringing the plague with them. The Mongol Empire collapsed.Sy Borg wrote: ↑July 21st, 2022, 4:56 pm
My "random" thought for the day: I've been catching up on history and learning about the Middle Ages. In the mid-1300s the Black Death decimated European populations. The plague caused mass migrations and also freed up much previously-occupied land. The chaos broke the Catholic Church's millennium long stranglehold on societies, resulting in a profound intellectual leap with the Renaissance leading into the modern age.
It seems that the Black Death functioned in much the same way as the Chicxulub asteroid that ended the 200 million-year reign of the dinosaurs and other giant species. This allowed mammals to flourish, which also lead to a profound intellectual leap.
Quite amazing how these great cathartic events occur and play out. It's also food for thought for the future. Might we become the collateral damage for the next great intellectual advance?
In Europe, the labor shortage created by so many deaths helped break the feudal system of serfdom, and fueled the rise of guilds and towns. Labor -- especially skilled labor - was in high demand, and thus the power of the workers, peasants and serfs increased. The intellectual rennaisance was influenced by the Crusades and the European contact with Muslim Spain had developed in the High Middle ages (13th century). Norman adventurers conquered Muslim Sicily as well as parts of Spain, and brought troves of knollwedge to Europe. Many of the Classics were translated not from Greek and Latin, but from Arabic (the Arabs had translated them earlier).
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