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Pedaços de Colecção II

Paulo Heleno — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 22:09:00 +0000

Crédito: Bizâncio

“Ao longo dos anos, Sagan apareceu algumas vezes no programa de televisão, transmitido a altas horas da noite, Nightline de Ted Koppel. Em outubeo apareceu no programa pela última vez. Ann mais tarde recordou: «Ted Koppel olhou para Carl e percebeu que ele tinha passado por uma experiência física horrível. O cabelo tinha-lhe caído e estava esquelético. Ele disse ««Carl, estiveste à morte muito recentemente. Decerto essa terrível doença deve ter-te inspirado alguns pensamentos pessoais que talvez queiras partilhar com os espectadores.»
Sentei-me e pensei «bem, vai falar da nossa família». E então vi Carl rasgar-se num sorriso radiante e dizer «a nossa verdadeira condição é esta. Vivemos numa minúscula bola de rocha e poeira, num cosmos cuja amplitude está para além da nossa imaginação.»

Keay Davidson, “Carl Sagan – Uma Vida”

Our Place in the Cosmos

corielleriddell — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 15:57:08 +0000

I love happy scientists.

For more inspiring videos, check out Symphony of Science.

John Boswell also creates beautiful music you can download at Color Pulse Music.

Quoteworthy: Religion and Science Edition

Libby — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 23:45:02 +0000

Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.

- Carl Sagan, astronomer

Many have misunderstood me when I’ve told them that I find inspiration in being alone in the universe. However, I don’t think this sentiment is uncommon, especially in the scientific community. In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins writes frequently of what he calls “Einsteinian Religion,” or the wonder and fascination that many scientists experience as they explore the natural world and all its strangeness, on both the microscopic and telescopic scales.

My sense of inspiration and awe – the closest thing I think I’ve ever come to knowing god – is best articulated by Carl Sagan in the popular “Pale Blue Dot” video.* Sagan eloquently sums it up:

Consider again that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you’ve ever heard of, every human being who ever was lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings; thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines; every hunter and forager; every hero and coward; every creator and destroyer of civilizations; every king and peasant, every young couple in love; every mother and father; every hopeful child; every inventor and explorer; every teacher of morals; every corrupt politician; every supreme leader; every superstar; every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there… It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. It underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the only home we’ve ever known: the pale blue dot.”

The inspiration I draw from the vastness of an inconceivably old universe gives me a sense of humanity, a powerful connectedness with others. This sensation trancends race and culture, and makes me feel like an ordinary member of the human species, not much different from any other person. We can argue over politics, ethics, or creed, but in the end we’re all just doing what we can to survive and prosper in this world. So while science may take a lot of the first-century mysticism away from our everyday lives, it also uncovers so much more about our world, including new mysteries to be pondered, explored, and ultimately solved.

*Unfortunately, PBD has been commandeered by the Al Gore and the Environati in recent years to fuel their own religious fervor. However, the force behind Sagan’s message seems to me to be primarily about human survival and peace, rather than environmental consideration.

A Declaration To The Future and Our Children

craigbaird — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 18:59:02 +0000

We are at a crossroads and we stand in front of two paths. Once on these paths, there is no going back, there is no do-over. The choice will have been made, and those who follow us will have to live with the decision we make right now.
On one path, is a future where our species has emerged from its adolescence and begun to think globally instead of regionally. Where we care for the environment and each other without expecting any reward or payback. The other path, is the path we have been on for centuries. It is the path of carrying more about money and possessions than the future we are creating. It is the path of caring more about the new television season than the millions who starve across the planet. It is the path of selfishness and the path that leads down a long and dark road.

We stand at a crossroads for our species right now. We have the chance to make the right decision and move down the right path. We can choose to move towards a better future for us all, but we have to make the decision now. This choice will never come again and we are running out of time to make it.

Our world is changing. The mistakes of our forefathers has created a world that is warming and changing faster than we realize. We are paying for the mistakes made by those who came before us, but rather than be the change we want to see in the world, we choose instead to make the same mistakes, resulting in our children and grandchildren paying the ultimate price.

The mistakes made before us have been so severe that no matter what we do right now, we will see a warming world. The oceans will continue to change for hundreds, if not thousands of years, because of us and those before us. We will see the Earth warm by one degree and we cannot stop it. We will lose the polar bear, the koala and countless other species that make our world an abundance of life and beauty. Hundreds of millions will lose freshwater and tiny island nations will slowly disappear under the sea. Those nations that will be hurt the most are the ones who did the least to cause this changing world. In the developed world, we can pay to ease the change in our lives, but others are not so lucky.

The Copenhagen Climate Conference is approaching and we hear the same old cries of hurting economies to protect the environment. Our own Prime Minister chose not to go until Obama decided to attend. We argue over whether or not economies will be hurt by changing the way we work to combat climate change, without realizing that the environment and the climate is our economy. The more we change it, the more our economy will suffer. We talk of lowering emissions by 30 percent in the next 40 years, why? Why does it take so long to make a change? When World War Two broke out, there was no talk about how to defeat the Nazis, it was a simple question of working together to combat a global threat. Detroit was told to make tanks, not cars. We were told to ration our reserves to help the war effort. The world worked together to stop a threat, and they did. Where is that same fight? Where is that same drive to say “The environment needs our help, and we are going to help it.!”
This conference and 2010 are our chance to do something and change the world. It is a time to fix things so that our ancestors can look back on us and say that we did meet the threat and we defeated it. We can be the Greatest Generation, the Environmental Generation, but we have to make the effort.

We buy Hummers and trucks because we having a status symbol. We own houses too large for us, that cost too much to heat, because we want people to see what we have.
This doesn’t matter. None of this does. It will not matter how big your house is when you cannot afford to heat it because gas prices are out of control. Who cares whether or not you have three bathrooms if you cannot even get freshwater in your home. One degree of warming means 30 percent less freshwater for all of us. That change is already happening, we can’t stop it and we can barely stop two degrees of warming.

There are those out there who deny climate change. We content themselves to driving Hummers, leaving their lights on and caring more about how others see them now than how their descendants will see them 100 years from now. They call us hippies and environmentalist whackos. They listen to the naysayers who say the economy will suffer without the oil and the fossil fuels, or the infrastructure that is there to make the car companies money, rather than help the environment.
Whether you believe global warming is happening or not, the Earth is changing and we have to do something about it. The risks are too great to ignore this any longer.

We look at our own ancestors and criticize them for slavery, for the way they treated others, for the destruction of other civilizations and we say it is wrong. Yet we do not turn that own looking glass on ourselves. We do not question how our future children will see us. Global warming is not a threat to us we think, but it is and it is a threat to our children. Our children will judge us, our descendants will look at us as the generation who had the chance to lead the fight and battle on the front lines against a future of misery and if we do not make the right choice, we will be judged poorly. We will be seen as the generation who chose a life of ease and luxury at the expense of the future. We will be vilified and criticized for our inaction.

We are the change and we are the future. Save the environment, save the world. We can make policy and we make change. We allow others, who have no care for the future of our planet to make the decisions and we distract ourselves with other worries that do not matter. We can change the world because there is no larger voice than all of us speaking together.

The Copenhagen Conference is the beginning, the change and the choice can be made there. We are running out of time.

Which path will you choose? Which path do you want the world to choose? The choice needs to be made now and we all have to go down that right path. Even if it means bringing some kicking and screaming, we have to make the right choice.

What will the economy matter when we have laid waste to the only home we have?
To end this note, I think it is important to borrow from one of the wisest men who ever lived, Carl Sagan, and his explanation of the Earth as a dot floating in a sun beam.

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

Our home, a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam

Your thoughts? E-mail me at crwbaird@gmail.com Feel free to forward this to others.

Symphony of Science

Jonathan — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:23:48 +0000

I first heard this a while ago, after a friend with a science teacher Dad pointed me towards it. Follow the video to youtube, and re-post it on your own blogs… it’s brilliant.

Carl Sagan’s Autotune Cosmos

Frank Cvetkovic — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:15:43 +0000

Hey kids,

This is perhaps the nerdiest thing I’ve seen all day, but I love it.

I wish I could autotune everything I say,
-frankie

Your Daily Quote

timriedel — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:02:18 +0000

Just the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
—Carl Sagan

CLICK HERE to go back to TimRiedel.com.

Staging a Presence

nightwoodband — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 15:39:50 +0000

all images from Cosmic Dust

Music For Science Nerds

Riayn — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 06:40:23 +0000

I mentioned a couple of posts ago about The Symphony Of Science’s A Glorious Dawn – an autotuned musical version of pieces of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. There is now a new music video out called Our Place in the Cosmos featuring not only Carl Sagan, but Richard Dawkins, Michio Kaku and Robert Jastrow as well.

For a science nerd like me, this is just fabulous.

I now really want to track down Carl Sagan’s series Cosmos so I can watch it.

Symphony of Science - 'Our Place in the Cosmos'

Ohio Buddhist — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 02:38:08 +0000

Truly beautiful, collection of some of the humans I have admired most in the world and through history… my deep love of science is what led me to Buddhism. Share and enjoy!

Symphony of Science

Explain THAT Science! #13: Light

logicmania — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:46:39 +0000

By Columnist Harry Trunckles

The other day, I was talking to my wife Anna about that no good asshole she left me for and she said “He’s light years beyond you Harry, don’t even compare yourself to him!”

I just slapped her face right there. First of all, anyone who thinks that light years are a unit of measurement for how poor of a husband I am clearly doesn’t understand the basics of physics. Light years describe how time is relative to light. This is similar to using “dog years” to describe your beloved pet’s rapid decrepidation. And a light year is roughly the length of time it takes for the universe to begin and then end. Kind of a useless measurement for us humans in my opinion.

Particle Physicists (More like particle suckacists! Zing!) have debated about the nature of light for the last few years. Is it a particle or is it a wave? Since this question isn’t being hotly debated by wave physicists, I am going to assume that the particle physicists are a bunch of biased bastards. There has actually been a number of rigorous studies done to determine this. Some indicated it was a wave. Some indicated it was a particle. The lazy conclusion they came to was that light was both a particle AND a wave. Ok, before you call them all idiots for arriving at such a counterintuitive notion, let me tell you about how they found this out. You’ll laugh even harder.

Anyway, let me go into the detail of this horrible Freudian-projected nightmare. The scientist would tell you that if you have a photon entering two slits, then it could theoretically interfere with itself if you do not observe it. If you do observe it, then the photon will not interfere with itself. This is all just some bullshit fantasy that if your wife doesn’t observe you having sex with two other women, it’s okay, since there’s some kind of penile (represented by photons) interference. Jeez scientists, grow up!

Its so patently obvious that this is the Freudian expression of the scientist’s desire for an adulterous threesome. One in which his penis interferes with itself. Guess what science guys, I tried that excuse, but my wife still won’t return my calls. Kind of punches a hole in your logic, don’t you think?

Back in the day, scientists wanted to know if there was this luminiferous ether that light travelled through. They never found the luminiferous ether! No shit, you particle dumbassicists! Didn’t you read Genesis chapter 1? God spoke and He bespoke light. Clearly light is supernatural in origin. You dipshiticists. However, to be fair, science was right about there needing to be a medium for light to travel through. You see, sound can’t travel in a vacuum. And since light is composed of God Voice Particles (GVP), any over-arching theory of cosmology has to include something like deity air (not some stupid ether!) for the sound particles to travel through.

My colleagues, occasionally secular godless science can be right. One thing physicists got right was when they said that at the speed of light (you know, 9,999 miles per hour), time does not pass, so light experiences no aging just like God. So clearly light could have only originated from God. My goodness, what do these jerks at MIT do all day not to realize that ageless particles prove their own origin – their own origin being that of God!

Speaking of time coming to a stop, there’s this stupid theory called Relativation Theory (you’d think it would be about relatives or something) that says that time slows down as you approach the speed of light. Let me tell you, I tried driving really fast in my car, and not only did time not slow down, but it actually seemed to pass faster as it didn’t take as long to get to my work. I was 20 minutes early! Wow, who came up with such a terrible theory?

Another claim by physicists is that light can’t escape a black hole. How absurd! Being the natural skeptic that I am, I went into my backyard where there are plenty of holes. I tossed a mirror down one and shone my flashlight into the hole. The beam of photons bounced right back out. Maybe the scientist that came up with this theory fell down a crevasse as a kid or was just really scared of the dark. Seems like astronomy might be a bad field to work in for you guys.

Light is actually not as complex as people think it is. The mainstream opinion is that humans only percieve a limited spectrum of light known as the “visible” and that there is also “Infrared”, “Ultraviolet,” “Radio,” “X-Rays,” and a bunch of other satanic beams of light rays. The truth is that scientists saw their funding drying up after they discovered Red through Purple and went ahead and made up some new kinds of light.

Let me conclude on this note. A particle physicist once asked me if a cat in some box was dead or alive due to some quantum mechanical mumbo jumbo aptly named Schumaker’s Cat. What a stupid question. I kill my neighbor’s cats routinely by boxing them up and tossing them into a river. So I’m fairly certain that most of the time when a cat is in a box, it is dead. Especially after I run it over with my Ford truck! In the interest of testing this ridiculous claim, I took the litter of kittens my neighbor was trying to find a home for and put them all in a box. Well, big disappointment. They took a whole day and a half to die, and no matter how many times I observed them they never came back to life.

Do you really want to believe a bunch of eggheads who are afraid of the dark, like to cheat on their wives, think cats can come back to life literally, and ask you stupid riddles about dead cats?

GÖRDÜKLERİNİZ GERÇEKTEN GÖRDÜKLERİNİZ Mİ?

nalincikeseri — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:13:14 +0000

Dün uzun zamandır masamda okunması gereken kitaplar arasında duran Richard Dawkins‘in “The Greatest Show on Earth” isimli kitabını okumaya başladım. Henüz “Only Theory?” isimli bölümünü bitirmeme rağmen, bu bölümdeki Goldbach Konjektürü ve Fermat Teoremine yapılan atıflar ile Carl Sagan‘dan bir alıntı kitabı bir anda çok sevmeme yol açtı. Ama konumuz bu değil.

Dawkins, benim daha önce çeşitli kaynaklarda okuduğum, UIUC’de olduğum yıllarda oradaki öğrencilerden dinlediğim Daniel J. Simons‘ın goril deneyinden de bahsediyor. Deneyde üçer kişilik iki takım öğrencinin ellerindeki basketbol toplarını takım arkadaşlarına attıkları ya da topla oynadıkları bir videonun denekler tarafından seyredilmesi üzerine kurulu. Deneklerden yaklaşık 75 saniyelik video süresince görüntüdeki takımlardan birinin toplam kaç defa topu birbirlerine attıkları soruluyor. Daha sonra can alıcı soru geliyor “Video’daki gorili (diğer versiyonu şemsiyeli kadın) gördünüz mü?”. Simons’ın makalesine göre deneklerin %46’sı videodaki gorili görmemişler.

Videonun kısa bir versiyonu UIUC Visual Cognition Lab web sitesine mevcut ve buradan ulaşılabilir. Tabi eğer buraya kadar okudu iseniz videodaki gorili yakalayacaksınızdır hemen. Ancak deneklerin %46’sının bu kocaman gorili göremediklerini düşünürsek bir daha “Ben gördüm olay böyle olmuştu” ya da “Yok öyle birşey ben görmedim” demeden önce en az bir kere daha düşünün derim ben.

let's go fly a kite

Sarah — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:30:23 +0000

It’s funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox, full of s

MP3: Symphony of Science - Our Place In The Cosmos

matterofeffect — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:46:55 +0000

Der dritte Song der Symphony of Science ist jetzt online und ist natürlich auch wieder als MP3 verfügbar.

Da fällt mir auch ein, dass ich das beste noch garnicht gepostet hatte. Nämlich, dass der erste Track “A Glorious Dawn” bei Third Man Records, Jack Whites Label, als 7″ erschienen ist und auf der B-Seite ist eine Prägung des original Voyager Golden Record covers von 1977. Ich warte sehnsüchtig auf die Ankunft meines Exemplars.

Download: Symphony of Science – Our Place In The Cosmos

Buy: Carl Sagan – A Glorious Dawn 7″

[via Nerdcore]

Symphony of Science - 'Our Place in the Cosmos' (ft. Sagan, Dawkins, Kaku, Jastrow)

doctore0 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:34:49 +0000

Yet another one, nice

A Message, A Hero, and Some Videos

Just Another Writer — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 05:55:57 +0000

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.

These quotes came from one man. Someone I look up to, and someone who’s messages I truly believe in.

Carl Sagan was an amazing man. If there is one person who walked this earth that I truly consider a hero, it would be him. I can’t speak for everyone, but his words are what inspired me to delve back into the worlds of science and philosophy. There are many nights I’ve stared at the ceiling, thinking about my, our existence. Even though he’s passed on, he’s still very much an active figure in today’s world. I like to think that he’d be happy knowing that even now he’s making a difference.

Science is a passion of mine. Philosophy as well. There’s something exhilarating about learning. It’s not something that’s always accessible. It can be tough to introduce yourself to it, to acclimate to it. There is, however, a way that I think is brilliant and truly enjoyable.

The Symphony of Science is a musical project by John Boswell designed to deliver scientific knowledge and philosophy in musical form.

There’s not much I can say about Symphony of Science that it doesn’t say for itself; but I will say this: This project is something truly worthwhile. Never before have I felt so drawn to something. I think this can change the world. Without further rambling, I present the three videos that have been made to this date.

If you enjoyed these, please head to the Symphony of Science website to download a free mp3 of each, learn more, and – if you’re feeling generous – make a donation. Please spread this. Tell your friends, families, strangers…anyone.

Symphony of Science: Our Place in the Cosmos

metousiosis — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 05:26:42 +0000

The latest installment from the Symphony of Science tackles the great question of our place in the cosmos and features Robert Jastrow, Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, and Michio Kaku.

From YouTube:

MP3: http://symphonyofscience.com orhttp://masonstreetgangstas.com/sos2 if my main site isn’t working!

“Our Place in the Cosmos”, the third video from the Symphony of Science, was crafted using samples from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, Richard Dawkins’ Genius of Charles Darwin series, Dawkins’ TED Talk, Stephen Hawking’s Universe series, Michio Kaku’s interview on Physics and aliens, plus added visuals from Baraka, Koyaanisqatsi, History Channel’s Universe series, and IMAX Cosmic Voyage. The themes present in this song are intended to explore our understanding of our origins within the universe, and to challenge the commonplace notion that humans have a superior or privleged position, both on our home planet and in the universe itself.

Sowing Season For The God Fearing Man.

vagrantheart — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 05:06:23 +0000

I wonder if it has ever occurred to a squirrel, whilst gathering its winters ration of acorns and nuts, that such a consciousness know as god might or might not exist? Surely, to this tiny rodent the immediate struggle of the next transition through the cosmos is a fearful one. Despite its best efforts, the little squirrel is still nothing more than a pest to the dream’s of man. Dreams. Dreams that have long since been seeded, grown, flourished, wilted, dried, crumbled, and disappeared within a single season of the lifetime of one insignificant being. A man’s lifetime is nothing; a speck, a still, nothing more than the blink of an eye in the existence to time itself. Time being the birth of all that we can possibly fathom. So where does this leave us? Why do we hide behind such clearly unfounded fiction? Authority, Power, Money, Deceit, Control. The fall of man was long ago my friends; long before we ever realized we had a chance. I hope to see the end to its glorious days of tyranny. Until then, I will paint my little paintings and live my little life in the comfort of knowing; that I am nothing. A ghost decaying with the rest of humanity in a country that commits heinous acts upon humanity under the shroud of a democracy. We are the problem. We will be the cure. Fear not brothers.

*the above mini painting is approximately 2″ x 3 1/2″. The original is available for $25 shipped unframed. There will not be any prints made.

carl sagan bustin' out the tunes

edwardshallow — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 04:22:53 +0000

Happy Birthday, Carl Sagan

Ryan Young — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:00:27 +0000

I’m a bit late on this, but Carl Sagan would have turned 75 on November 9. The Skeptic Society’s Michael Shermer has set up a nice tribute to him.

The thing I admire most about Carl Sagan isn’t his academic credentials, impressive though they were. It’s that he wasn’t afraid to be a popularizer. In fact, he embraced it. He has been an inspiration for what I hope to accomplish in my own professional life.

Will Durant’s book The Story of Philosophy is credited with introducing more people to its subject than any other book. What Will Durant did for philosophy (and later, with his wife Ariel Durant, history), Carl Sagan did for astronomy.

Some pointy-nosed academics looked down on Sagan for pandering to the masses. But Sagan did more in his too-short life to actually educate people than the lot of them combined. How many of those same disdainful academics were inspired to forge a career in science because of Carl Sagan? For a subject as esoteric as cosmology, this is no small achievement.

People who work in economics or public policy would do well to pay attention not just to what Carl Sagan did, but to how he did it. Intellectuals from all disciplines should follow the sterling example set by Carl Sagan.

Hur mycket stjärnstoft har du i din kropp?

åka — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:04:45 +0000

Det var väl Carl Sagan som spred tanken att vi består av atomer från döda stjärnor — av stjärnstoft — till de breda massorna. Han var bra på sådant, Carl Sagan.

Ganska nyligen nämnde jag litiumproblemet, och hur vi trots att vi kan räkna ganska noggrannt på hur mycket väte och helium som bildades i big bang fortfarande har lite problem att förstå mängden litium. Väte, helium och litium är som bekant de lättaste grundämnena. Nästan alla atomkärnor av andra grundämnen har förstås bildats i stjärnor eller stjärnors dödsryckningar. Allt syre och allt kol vi består av, allt kisel och alla metaller som bygger upp vår rätt så fasta planet.

Det är en rätt svindlande tanke, en sån där som sätter saker i perspektiv. Ganska romantiskt, om man kan tänka sig att uttrycka det så.

Jag läste för något år sedan den trots allt rätt bra romanen Dark Matter av Rodman Philbrick (jag läser alla berättelser som innehåller mörk materia). Det är en deckare om astronomer. Där funkar det här stjärnstoftsperspektivet även som raggningsknep:

“You know what did it?” Fiona says. “What made me want to sleep with him? He said the stars were inside us. That most of the molecules inside our bodies come from stars.”

Jag är osäker på hur bra det här funkar i verkligheten. Om någon försökte det på mig skulle jag bara skratta, alternativt bli irriterad på att någon skulle tro att det var något nytt. Fast alla är nog inte så bekanta med tanken.

Idag fick jag ett antal sökträffar från folk som letar efter information om detta: “människan består av stjärnstoft”, “vi är stjärnstoft”. Någon skoluppgift eller så? Jag vet inte, men det påminde mig om det här inlägget från Physics and Physicists, som refererar (eller snarare citerar) den här postern från American Physical Society. Följ länken för att se detaljerna, men slutsatsen är i alla fall att 93 procent av en människas massa består av atomer från döda stjärnor.

Vi är 93% stjärnstoft.

Inom en snar framtid ska jag lägga upp en liten förklaring av hur de lätta atomkärnorna bildades i big bang, och kanske också något om stjärnorna.

Det har väl heller inte undgått någon att LHC har stråle igen, det har ju stått i alla tidningar. Se till exempel US LHC Blogs för detaljer. Jag har bjudit in någon som jobbar med ett CERN-experiment för att skriva ett gästinlägg här, förhoppningsvis kommer det i veckan.

New Tunes from John Boswell

fascinatingscience — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:58:23 +0000

I recall reading a discussion on science and poetry. I recall the author (I can’t remember who it was) asking, where are the poets inspired by science? Given the indescribable beauty and majesty of this universe we live in, and are part of, why is it that we find so few poets or artists inspired by scientific discoveries? I don’t know the answer to the question, but I have a bit of evidence that contradicts the assumption that science fails to inspire art!

Hot off the presses, here’s another stirring melody from John Boswell of Symphony of Science. You will remember him from the two other pieces he has composed, also posted on this site.

Without further delay, here’s “Our Place in the Cosmos,” by John Boswell, and featuring the words of Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Michio Kaku and Robert Jastrow.

Beautiful!

What are your thoughts on our place in the cosmos as revealed by science? Do you find it frightening to confront our smallness? Does the enormity of time, stretching so far in either direction, make your life seem vain? Do you struggle with the idea that you and all your wonders stem from a body made of matter? Or does our smallness inspire you to consider with what luck we exist at all? Does the enormity of time force an emphasis on this very moment? And does all of human complexity stemming from common matter elevate that matter, rather than degrading the human? What do you think?

-Neil

Carl Sagan autotuned pt. 3

thedarkcleft — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:53:06 +0000

Slow it down a bit.

Our place in the cosmos.

Carl Sagan - 'A Glorious Dawn' ft Stephen Hawking (Cosmos Remixed)

The Daily Daily — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 04:04:42 +0000

The Symphony of Science is a musical project by John Boswell “designed to deliver scientific knowledge and philosophy in musical form.” Using Auto-Tune and clips from Carl Sagan’s PBS series, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, Boswell has created a captivating music video:

There is a second video available on his website, featuring Bill Nye the Science Guy. The video above, “A Glorious Dawn”, is also available on 7″ vinyl through Jack White’s record label, Third Man Records.