26 APR 2012 by ideonexus
The Frightening Discovery of the Void in the Atom
When I hear to-day protests against the Bolshevism of modern science and regrets for the old-established order, I am inclined to think that Rutherford, not Einstein, is the real villain of the piece. When we compare the universe as it is now supposed to be with the universe as we had ordinarily preconceived it, the most arresting change is not the rearrangement of space and time by Einstein but the dissolution of all that we regard as most solid into tiny specks floating in void. That gives a...More frightening than the vastness of space.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Big History as a Fable
Once upon a time, about ten or fifteen billion years ago, the universe was without form. There were no galaxies. There were no stars. There were no planets. And there was no life. Darkness was upon the face of the deep. The universe was hydrogen and helium. The explosion of the Big Bang had passed, and the fires of that titanic event – either the creation of the universe or the ashes of a previous incarnation of the universe – were rumbling feebly down the corridors of space. But the gas...Folksonomies: wonder big history
Folksonomies: wonder big history
Carl Sagan tells the story of our Universe's history as a fairy tale.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Pioneer 10 Plaque
On the title page of this chapter is shown the message. It is etched on a 6-inch by 9-inch gold-anodized aluminum plate, attached to the antenna support struts of Pioneer 10. The expected erosion rate in interstellar space is sufficiently small that this message should remain intact for hundreds of millions of years, and probably for a much longer period of time. It is, thus, the artifact of mankind with the longest expected lifetime. The message itself intends to communicate the locale, ep...Carl Sagan describes everything that went into the symbolism of this message sent to the stars.
13 DEC 2011 by ideonexus
The Precarious Laws of Nature
By examining the model universes we generate when the theories of physics are altered in certain ways, one can study the effect of changes to physical law in a methodical manner. It turns out that it is not only the strengths of the strong nuclear force and the electromagnetic force that are made to order for our existence. Most of the fundamental constants in our theories appear fine tuned in the sense that if they were altered by only modest amounts, the universe would be qualitatively diff...If the laws of nature were different by a very small amount, the Universe would not work in such a way as to produce life.