14 APR 2015 by ideonexus
A Sunset Bloom
Then we sat on the sand for some time and observed
How the oceans that cover the world were perturbed
By the tides from the orbiting moon overhead
"How relaxing the sound of the waves is," you said.
I began to expound upon tidal effects
When you asked me to stop, looking somewhat perplexed
So I did not explain why the sunset turns red
And we watched the occurrence in silence instead.Folksonomies: poetry
Folksonomies: poetry
1 Lieutenant Commander Data (2338 – 2379)
06 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
The Universe is Made Up of Two Kinds of Waves
The tendency of modern physics is to resolve the whole material universe into waves, and nothing but waves. These waves are of two kinds: bottled-up waves, which we call matter, and unbottled waves, which we call radiation or light. If annihilation of matter occurs, the process is merely that of unbottling imprisoned wave-energy and setting it free to travel through space. These concepts reduce the whole universe to a world of light, potential or existent, so that the whole story of its creat...
3 Bottled up waves in matter and the roaming waves of radiation.
22 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
Metaphor for the Uncertainty Principle
There is a slightly flawed yet very satisfying physical argument that gives some heuristic understanding of the uncertainty principle. Quantum mechanics endows all particles with a wavelike behavior, and waves have one striking property: they are disturbed only when they encounter objects larger than their wavelength (the distance between successive crests). You have only to observe water waves in the ocean to see this behavior explicitly. A pebble protruding from the surface of the water wil...Krauss explains the principle using waves.
21 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
Looking to the Present to Understand the Past
In using the present in order to reveal the past, we assume that the forces in the world are essentially the same through all time; for these forces are based on the very nature of matter, and could not have changed. The ocean has always had its waves, and those waves have always acted in the same manner. Running water on the land has ever had the same power of wear and transportation and mathematical value to its force. The laws of chemistry, heat, electricity, and mechanics have been the sa...Folksonomies: induction
Folksonomies: induction
1 
notes
notesOceans have always had waves, streams have always worn down rocks, and other natural laws have always been the same throughout time.
31 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Earth Self-Heals Better Than Humans Try to Heal It
Ecologically speaking, a spilt tanker load is like sticking a safety pin into an elephant’s foot. The planet barely notices. After the Exxon Valdez accident in Alaska the oil company spent billions tidying up the coastline, but it was a waste of money because the waves were cleaning up faster than Exxon could. Environmentalists can never accept the planet’s ability to self-heal.Folksonomies: environmentalism
Folksonomies: environmentalism
1 notes
notesThe Exxon Valdes was equivalent of "sticking a safety pin into an elephant’s foot" for the Earth.
28 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Sir Bragg on the Wave/Particle Duality
No known theory can be distorted so as to provide even an approximate explanation [of wave-particle duality]. There must be some fact of which we are entirely ignorant and whose discovery may revolutionize our views of the relations between waves and ether and matter. For the present we have to work on both theories. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays we use the wave theory; on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays we think in streams of flying energy quanta or corpuscles. Folksonomies: physics wave/particle duality
Folksonomies: physics wave/particle duality
1 notes
notesScientist work with them as having one characteristic some days of the week and the other on other days.
24 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Limits of Language
The ultimate origin of the difficulty lies in the fact (or philosophical principle) that we are compelled to use the words of common language when we wish to describe a phenomenon, not by logical or mathematical analysis, but by a picture appealing to the imagination. Common language has grown by everyday experience and can never surpass these limits. Classical physics has restricted itself to the use of concepts of this kind; by analysing visible motions it has developed two ways of represen... 1 notes
notesLanguage grows out of experience, but we have not experienced the alien phenomena of much of physics.
03 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Skrodes
Ravna looked across the surf. When the waves backed down the sand, she could see the Skroderiders’ fronds peeping out of the spray. How she envied them; if tensions annoyed them, they could simply turn them off. The Skroderiders were one of the most common sophonts in the Beyond. There were many varieties, but analysis agreed with legend: very long ago they had been one species. Somewhere in the off-Net past, they had been sessile dwellers of sea shores. Left to themselves, they had develop... 1 notes
notesAn alien species that looks like plant and lacks short-term memory is given mechanical mobility and mechanical memory to help them learn how to use their mobility by a more advanced alien race.
30 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Francis Bacon's Only Flaw Was that He Was Not Revolutionary
We do not know what we should admire the most, his rich intuitive views on all subjects or the dignified tone of his style. His writings can be compared only with those of Hippocrates on medicine; and they would be neither less admired nor less read if the cultivation of the mind were as dear to the human race as the conservation of health. But only the writings of leading sectarians can achieve a certain vogue; Bacon was not one of them, and his philosophic method was opposed to this: it was... 1 notes
notesHe was too dignified, his philosophy to straightforward to make waves in culture, but his simple idea to look at nature for what it is was a revolutionary idea.
20 MAY 2011 by ideonexus
Color is the Light Beams Things Do Not Want
But the reflected light-waves do more for us than this. They not only make us see things, but they make us see them in different colours. What, you will ask, is this too the work of the sunbeams? Certainly; for if the colour we see depends on the size of the waves which come back to us, then we must see things coloured differently according to the waves they send back. For instance, imagine a sunbeam playing on a leaf: part of its waves bound straight back from it to our eye and make us see t... 1 notes
notesAll other wavelengths are being absorbed.
