Friday, September 29, 2023
Tuesday, September 26, 2023
Saturday, September 23, 2023
Can Physics explain the Purpose of Everything?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgTiMEfWkHE
Science describes how things happen and not why.
There is a joke in an Isaac Asimov robot novel where the students in a class troll their robot teacher by asking the 'why' of something. When the robot gives an answer they ask 'why' again, and keep repeating the request making the robot go into more and more detail.
Over 20 years ago I was struggling with the meaning of life, and I came to the conclusion that the meaning of life was to find meaning. The beauty of this is that it will be different for everyone. For many, it would be family, but for others, it would be something else. I like the idea of working toward some goal.
Emptiness of space
Our minds do not comprehend the emptiness of space. Huge distances separate the planets, yet this is tiny compared to the distance to the nearest star. These are further dwarfed by the size of the galaxy which in turn is dwarfed by the incredible vastness of the Observable Universe. And what lies between these celestial bodies is a great void. Immense emptiness that we will likely never cross.
Planet Earth is our lifeboat in a nearly infinite ocean of almost nothing.
Planet Earth is our lifeboat in a nearly infinite ocean of almost nothing.
Friday, September 22, 2023
Thursday, September 21, 2023
Wednesday, September 20, 2023
why tolerating lactose is weird
https://youtube.com/shorts/EP56wTBgiPM?si=r2uVHs-DfDThyLfR
The truth is that people from cow herding cultures evolved toward adult lactose tolerance because it is a survival advantage. Most Asian people are lactose intolerant.
The truth is that people from cow herding cultures evolved toward adult lactose tolerance because it is a survival advantage. Most Asian people are lactose intolerant.
Tuesday, September 19, 2023
Thursday, September 14, 2023
Monday, September 11, 2023
Saturday, September 9, 2023
Jurassic Raccoon
https://youtube.com/shorts/D7w4AXKSZUg?si=_Pa-bGZVvGTP_raE
My father used to say that you should never feed a wild animal. I didn't understand at first, but the problem is that many animals can have rabies and not show symptoms. This includes raccoons.
Wild animals are not pets.
Migratory birds only fly south when the food runs out. I noticed that people would feed ducks who then stuck around till winter. This can't be good for the birds.
Best wishes,
John Coffey
My father used to say that you should never feed a wild animal. I didn't understand at first, but the problem is that many animals can have rabies and not show symptoms. This includes raccoons.
Wild animals are not pets.
Migratory birds only fly south when the food runs out. I noticed that people would feed ducks who then stuck around till winter. This can't be good for the birds.
Best wishes,
John Coffey
Friday, September 8, 2023
Thursday, September 7, 2023
Difference between a Stellar Day and a Solar Day
It is hard to wrap my head around this, but the Earth actually rotates once every 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds. If you compare the position of the stars in the sky, they will be in the same place 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds later. However, the Earth is moving around the Sun in what is called prograde motion (the same direction as the rotation of the Sun, not that this matters), so consequently, the Sun appears in the same place in the sky roughly every 24 hours. It is a difference of 4 minutes. It is the difference between a Stellar day and a solar day.
Wednesday, September 6, 2023
Maybe we should set up an interstellar radio station
Maybe we should set up an interstellar radio station. Aliens might not understand anything about us, and most radio signals get lost in the noise, but MUSIC might punch through the void. Even a species with no concept of music would recognize that there is intelligence behind the patterns.
Tuesday, September 5, 2023
Eric Weinstein
Talk is cheap. I know nothing about this man or his credibility. It is a given that science hasn't found all the answers.
Monday, September 4, 2023
Saturday, September 2, 2023
Friday, September 1, 2023
I Can't Stop Thinking that People Who Deny Climate Change are Lying
1 second ago
I am not aware of people changing where they are on the climate belief scale. I can't speak for everyone, especially attention-seeking YouTubers.
Of course, human CO2 emissions have caused the atmosphere to warm by about 1 degree Celsius over the last 140 years.
However, this issue is far more complicated than that. Climate Alarmism very much depends upon as of yet unproven positive feedback mechanisms. The solutions to Climate Change are likely more expensive and damaging to our economy than they are worth.
There are many factors that contribute to people's doubt, which is maybe why it would appear that people are shifting positions. Just to name a few: The politicization of science. Poor past predictions. The urban heat island effect. The uncertainty associated with clouds. The large error bars in the models. Temperature data that is *estimated* based on models. The alteration of past temperature data. Climategate "hiding the decline". One third of the people on the IPCC are members of an environmental lobbying group, which is a conflict of interest. The IPCC refused to hire anyone who did not already believe in catastrophic-man-made warming, which is what they are supposed to evaluate. (You don't do science by starting with the conclusion.) The former head of the IPCC called catastrophic-man-made warming his "religion". (No bias there!) A former IPCC member said that it wasn't about climate but about doing away with free-market capitalism.
Some climate scientists said that they were afraid to speak out against climate alarmism because they would lose funding. There is no 97% consensus. There are many actual climate scientists who think the alarmism is overblown.
We are in a brief interglacial warm period. All of human civilization arose during this brief warm period. We are halfway between the Earth's maximum tilt, which melts glaciers, and its minimal tilt, which allows glaciers to grow. Over the very long term, global cooling will be the problem. What humans have done to the atmosphere is trivial, and we will be running out of most fossil fuels by the year 2100. We might run out of oil reserves in 40 years.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)