The Increasing Chemical Complexity of the Cosmos

The ancient origins of stars, planets and life may be viewed as a sequence of emergent events, each of which added to the chemical complexity of the cosmos. Stars, which formed from the primordial hydrogen of the Big Bang, underwent nucleosynthesis to produce all the elements of the Periodic Table. Those elements were dispersed during supernova events and provided the raw materials for planets and all their mineralogical diversity. Chemical evolution on Earth (and perhaps countless other plan...

 Notes From the Cosmic Perspective

Culture is the things you do that you don’t notice. In Italy they have a pasta aisle. In America we have ready made cereal isle, Soft drink aisle. Culture of discovery doesn't last forever Backup mic display Bad seats people Periodic table flags Top countries of element discovery, noble gases Scientists on currency Franklin outwitted god - Lightning rod, discharge electrons 9/11 vs a golden age of islam Alhazen, optics, previously people thought sight was beaming, active 2/3 of ...

 Accelerating Knowledge

The rate at which man has been storing up useful knowledge about himself and the universe has been spiraling upward for 10,000 years. The rate took a sharp upward leap with the invention of writing, but even so it remained painfully slow over centuries of time. The next great leap forward in knowledge—acquisition did not occur until the invention of movable type in the fifteenth century by Gutenberg and others. Prior to 1500, by the most optimistic estimates, Europe was producing books at a r...

 Carbon VS Silicon Life

Though one might imagine "living" organisms such as intelligent computers produced from other elements, such as silicon, it is doubtful that life could have spontaneously evolved in the absence of carbon. The reasons for that are technical but have to do with the unique manner in which carbon bonds with other elements. Carbon dioxide, for example, is gaseous at room temperature, and biologically very useful. Since silicon is the element directly below carbon on the periodic table, it has simi...