23 MAY 2015 by ideonexus
Invoking God to Explain Ignorance is Unproductive
Writing in centuries past, many scientists felt compelled to wax poetic about cosmic mysteries and God's handiwork. Perhaps one should not be surprised at this: most scientists back then, as well as many scientists today, identify themselves as spiritually devout.
ut a careful reading of older texts, particularly those concerned with the universe itself, shows that the authors invoke divinity only when they reach the boundaries of their understanding. They appeal to a higher power only when ... 1 
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notes13 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
The Importance of Mathematics in Seafaring
Before there was an accurate seafaring clock, the sailor seeking his bearings
had to be a trained mathematician. The accepted way to find longitude
at sea was by precise observations of the moon, which required refined
instruments and subtle calculations. An error as small as 5' in observing the
moon meant an error of 2V2. degrees of longitude, which on the ocean could
be as much as 150 miles—enough to wreck a ship on treacherous shoals.
Fatal miscalculation might come from a crude instrume...
1 Sailors had to be mathematicians in order to keep their bearings on the ocean.
13 MAY 2013 by ideonexus
Look for the Improbable in Extraterrestrial Life
To land a spacecraft on Europa, with the heavy equipment needed to penetrate the ice and explore the ocean directly, would be a formidable undertaking. A direct search for life in Europa's ocean would today be prohibitively expensive. But just as asteroid and comet impacts on Mars have given us an easier way to look for evidence of life on that planet, impacts on Europa give us an easier way to look for evidence of life there. Every time a major impact occurs on Europa, a vast quantity of wat...Folksonomies: exploration extraterrestrials
Folksonomies: exploration extraterrestrials
1 notes
notesWe should look for freeze-dried live ejected from impacts with Europa rather than trying to send probes into the ice.
22 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
How Small are Atoms?
Why are atoms so small? ... Many examples have been devised to bring this fact home to an audience, none of them more impressive than the one used by Lord Kelvin: Suppose that you could mark the molecules in a glass of water, then pour the contents of the glass into the ocean and stir the latter thoroughly so as to distribute the marked molecules uniformly throughout the seven seas; if you then took a glass of water anywhere out of the ocean, you would find in it about a hundred of your marke...
1 So small that, if you were to pour a cup of water into the ocean and let it stir in, you could retrieve a cup of water from anywhere in the ocean that would contain 100 molecules from your cup.
13 APR 2012 by ideonexus
Plesiosaurs Sucked
There were no real sea serpents in the Mesozoic Era, but the plesiosaurs were the next thing to it. The plesiosaurs were reptiles who had gone back to the water because it seemed like a good idea at the time. As they knew little or nothing about swimming, they rowed themselves around in the water with their four paddles, instead of using their tails for propulsion like the brighter marine animals. (Such as the ichthyosaurs, who used their paddles for balancing and steering. The plesiosaurs di...Folksonomies: adaptation
Folksonomies: adaptation
1 notes
notesWill Cuppy convincingly argues that this reptile was incredibly poorly adapted to life in the ocean.
28 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Scientists Must Remain Modest
Vulnerable, like all men, to the temptations of arrogance, of which intellectual pride is the worst, he [the scientist] must nevertheless remain sincere and modest, if only because his studies constantly bring home to him that, compared with the gigantic aims of science, his own contribution, no matter how important, is only a drop in the ocean of truth. Because they must know that their contributions to the body of knowledge are just drops in an ocean.
03 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Vernor Vinges' Zones
You could study your whole life, and not know. How long must a fish study to understand human motivation? It’s not a good analogy, but it’s the only safe one; we are like dumb animals to the Powers of the Transcend. Think of all the different things people do to animals—ingenious, sadistic, charitable, genocidal—each has a million elaborations in the Transcend. The Zones are a natural protection; without them, human-equivalent intelligence would probably not exist.” She waved at the... 1 notes
notesWe are like fish in an aquarium attempting to understand the godlike intelligences in the Transcend, whose motives are beyond us and whose perspective on us is impossible to fathom.
01 JAN 2010 by ideonexus
Ancient Greek Perception of the Ocean
To the ancient Greeks the ocean was an endless stream that flowed forever around the border of the world, ceaselessly turning upon itself like a wheel, the end of earth, the beginning of heaven. This ocean was boundless; it was infinite. If a person were to venture far out into it--were such a course thinkable--he would pass through gathering darkness and obscuring fog and would come at last to a dreadful and chaotic blending of sea and sky, a place where whirlpools and yawning abysses waited... 1 notes
notesA beautiful passage of how the Greeks saw the magnificent and mysterious sea.
01 JAN 2010 by ideonexus
The Ocean Regulates the Earth's Temperature
For the globe as a whole, the ocean is the great regulator, the great stabilizer of temperatures. It has been described as 'a savings bank for solar energy, receiving deposits in seasons of excessive insolation and paying them back in seasons of want.' Without the ocean, our world would be visited by unthinkably harsh extremes of temperature. For the water that covers three-fourths of the earth's surface with an enveloping mantle is a substance of remarkable qualities. It is an excellent abso...Folksonomies: nature
Folksonomies: nature
1 notes
notesIt serves as a store for heat energy, maintaining a temperature balance on the planet.
