World History and Science

From Universe to Multiverse

2010-09-04T11:51:00.001-04:00

This explaination of a multiverse in plain language is part of a process of changing the way humanity thinks about reality. It is as earthshaking as the Copernican Revolution. What if multiverses exist? What does it mean? How long will it take for a society filled with forty per cent of its members thinking existence is less than ten thousand years old.

This video has at least two ideas that are new to me. White holes? White holes are the opposite of black holes. They are spots where massive amounts of material are spewed out from a single location...a lot like the singularity that produced the big bang. This Time Article written in the 1970's shows just how far behind I could be.

The second idea is more of a reminder. Dark matter is not made up of atoms. Dark matter is around twenty per cent of the matter in the universe so what we learned in school about all matter being composed of atoms is not true. At least some dark matter is non-baryonic. This leaves me with some very large and difficult areas of farther study.

General Custer in the American Civil War

2010-08-30T10:35:00.000-04:00

I will be presenting an hour and a half talk on Custer in the Civil War to the Saginaw Civil War Round Table on Oct. 6. That will be the first public discussion of this very interesting man who so polorized the opinions of those around him.

His men did not care for him generally. They thought he drove the men and horses too hard. They also said he didn't accept the opinions of other officers. He did accomplish many great feats in the Civil War though so much is to be said in his favor.

Missing Neutrinos Solved

2010-06-02T08:58:00.001-04:00

Link to Article

Now scientists at Italy's National Institute for Nuclear Physics have for the first time observed -- with 98 percent certainty -- what they change into during a process called neutrino oscillation: another type of particle known as tau.

Under the prevailing Standard Model, neutrinos cannot have mass. But the new experiments prove that they do.

One implication is the existence of other, as yet unobserved types of neutrinos that could help clarify the nature of Dark Matter, which is believed to make up about 25 percent of the universe.

This is another example of the strange things which happen as things become infinitely small or large.

Hitchens and Evil

2010-02-12T20:59:00.000-05:00

Hitchens on the Axis of Evil

The smell of death. The necessity of Evil. 1984 are all here but here with a description that says "tell me no more spirit". It is too much and yet it all took place. Hitchen's examples bring the listener too close.

Farm History , This article reminded me so much of many things I experienced as a child growing up on a farm in Michigan. There was thirty years between the writer’s time and mine but so much seems the same.

2009-12-31T18:14:00.001-05:00

Jack Bailey' s Delco Light

2009-12-31T17:15:00.000-05:00

Jack Bailey' s Delco Light

I found this interesting article on the Delco Power Plant. I didn't know they existed but am not surprised. These must have been quite common twenty years before I was born.

Jack fixed up the light plant and made a display on a trailer. The display consisted of the 'Delco' light plant operating a 'Delco' radio, a 'Delco Light' utility motor pulling a 'Myers' pump actually pumping water, a 'Safety Car' fan from a railway passenger car, a 'Sunbeam' electric iron, and three light bulbs with three types of ceiling fixtures of the period. The latter was wired with the 'knob and tube' system of the heyday of the light plant. He also has some of the old glass jar batteries and a battery shipping box on display. The only thing new on his display were modern auto batteries used in lieu of the sixteen glass jar batteries of the original system.

Charles Kettering invented and developed the 'Delco Light Set' for farm and rural use. Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company, or 'Delco,' brings to mind well-known names that are, or once were, tied to Delco and its founders, Charles Kettering and Col. Edward Deeds. These names are General Motors, Frigidaire and the De-Havilland DH-4 bomber of World War One. Kettering is credited with putting the first electric starter on the auto, thus making the auto a vehicle anyone could start and drive.

The tag on the Davis unit reads 'The Delco Light 2044xx Delco Light Co., Dayton, Ohio.' It is a model 850. The generator and engine are on the same shaft. The engine is air cooled, starts on gasoline and runs on kerosene and shuts off automatically when batteries are fully charged. It must be restarted manually, either by hand crank or by switching current from the batteries back through the generator where it will serve as a starter motor. The unit is fitted with a Weston ammeter. The output is listed at 22 amps at 38 volts. The fuel tank has a two gallon capacity and the unit will run 3? to 4? hours on just one gallon of fuel. The horse power is listed at 1? and operates at 1150 to 1250 rpm. This unit has a 2? inch bore with a five inch stroke. The working system is 32 volts and originally used 16 glass jar batteries at two volts each.

NOVA | Last Extinction | Watch the Program | PBS

2009-08-23T21:18:00.000-04:00

NOVA | Last Extinction | Watch the Program | PBS

It looks more and more like the loss of mega-fauna in North America was caused by the impact of a comet about 13000 years ago.

NOVA | Last Extinction | Watch the Program | PBS

2009-08-23T20:31:00.000-04:00

NOVA | Last Extinction | Watch the Program | PBS

This is a change in our outlook for North America

Data Mining

2008-12-02T22:50:00.001-05:00

The business of data

Data is big business for the numerati. US firm Acxiom keeps shopping and lifestyle data on some 200 million Americans.

They know how much we paid for our house, what magazines we subscribe to, which books we buy and what vacations we take. The company purchases just about every bit of data about us that can be bought, and then sells selections of it to anyone out to target us in, say, political campaigns.

Much effort is expended finding new ways to gather data on people. A company called Umbria uses software to analyse millions of blog and forum posts every day, using sentence structure, word choice and quirks in punctuation to determine the blogger's gender, age interests and opinion. That knowledge can be a valuable tool to people launching new products, or politicians seeking votes.

Microsoft has filed patents for technology that monitors the heart rate, blood pressure, galvanic skin response, facial expressions of office workers, and even their brain waves.

The idea, the patents say, is to let managers know if workers are experiencing heightened frustration or stress. Given that the same technologies are used inlie detectors and to study human behaviour, it seems unlikely many workforces would quietly accept their boss introducing such a system.

Tags: data mining, Umbria

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Green Land of Bhutan

2008-11-24T21:51:00.001-05:00

Physicists Calculate the Proton's Mass

2008-11-21T22:36:00.001-05:00

It's one thing to know a fact, but it's another to explain it, as a curious advance in particle physics shows. Ever since the proton was discovered 89 years ago, physicists have been able to measure the mass of the particle--which, along with another called the neutron, makes up the atomic nucleus. But even with the best computers, theorists had not been able to start with a description of the proton's constituent parts and calculate its mass from scratch. Now, a team of theorists has reached that goal, marking the arrival of precision calculations of the ultracomplex "strong force" that binds nuclear matter.

In the 1970s, experimenters discovered that the proton and the neutron, known collectively as nucleons, consist of more-fundamental particles called quarks and gluons, which are the basic elements of a theory called quantum chromodynamics (QCD). In the simplest terms, a proton contains two "up" type quarks and one "down" type quark, with gluons zipping among them to bind them with the strong nuclear force. (The neutron contains two downs and an up.) In reality, a nucleon is much more complicated.

To simplify matters, the team took a tack pioneered in the late 1970s called lattice QCD. Within their computer programs, the researchers modeled space not as continuous but as a three-dimensional array of points. They also modeled time as passing in discrete ticks, as opposed to flowing smoothly. This turns space and time into a lattice of points. The researchers then confined the quarks to the points in the lattice and the gluons to the links between the points. The lattice sets a shortest distance and time for the interactions, greatly simplifying the problem.

Tags: Particle Physics, gluons, QCD

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Dubai is the center of Architecture in the World Today

2008-11-20T22:13:00.001-05:00

"Dubai is Nuts" Gallery
WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON OVER THERE? Dubai is said to currently have 15-25% of all the world's cranes.

Links

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Corruption in China

2008-11-15T07:51:00.001-05:00

President Hu Jintao's government, in an indication of concern about the unrest among suddenly landless farmers, has launched a campaign to preserve the fields and paddies that feed China's 1.3 billion people. In addition, it has allocated $42.5 billion to improving the lives of the 700 million Chinese still attached to the land and filled official propaganda with stories of Communist Party cadres out in the countryside solving problems for grateful farmers.

Despite the two-day riot here, the first signs have emerged that the campaign may be having an effect. Although party censorship makes information in China hard to assess, reports of violent protests in farming villages have declined sharply over the past six months. This marks a significant shift from 2004-05, when clashes between farmers and police escalated dramatically. The Public Security Ministry reported 84,000 violent protests in 2005, more than 200 a day.

The villagers said, they were promised an explanation of how the 200 private guards, many with buzz cuts and tattoos typical of Chinese gangsters, came to be in Sanzhou protecting a multistory apartment complex built on a prime piece of the confiscated farmland.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/27/AR2006062701648_pf.html

Corruption world wide is a major concern for the common citizen. Russia and China both seem to be led by criminal groups. The West is highly affected by similiar activities and our major conflict is with so-called terrorist groups. All of this, shows the effectiveness of power going private and the in-effectiveness of public and open government. That could be a coming 'Dark Age'.

Tags: corruption, gangsters, criminal groups, China

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Snow Falls on Mars -- National Geographic

2008-11-03T23:34:00.001-05:00

This interesting video speaks about the effects of water on Mars. It shows examples.

Snow Falls on Mars -- National Geographic

Blue Brain and Consciousness

2008-09-18T12:51:00.001-04:00

The linked site reports new information on consciousness

The Blue Brain project - thatother big science experiment in Switzerland - might finally make the link. Earlier this week at the inagural INCF conference on Neuroinformatics, Henry Markam reported that a recent modification to their detailed simulation of a rat cortical column produced persistent oscillatory activity in the gamma frequency band (roughly 40-80Hz).

This is significant, because the model wasn’t designed in any way to produce this behaviour. It simply emerged after setting up the cortical column of 10,000 cells with realisitic connectivity patterns and electrophysiological properties. As far as I understood, they simply stimulated layer IV and watched a wave of activity build up, propagate throughout the column via layer II/III and initiate gamma ocillatory activity in layer V. This behaviour only emerged following one of their weekly updates to the simulation. Markram wouldn’t say exactly what changes they made, unsurprisingly enough. Expect a publication forthcoming.

http://neuronism.wordpress.com/

Tags: Blue Brain, Consciousness

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Patricia Burchat sheds light on dark matter | Video on TED.com

2008-09-05T11:49:00.001-04:00

This speaker does a great job of explaining a complex subject that is just coming on our radar screen.

Patricia Burchat sheds light on dark matter | Video on TED.com

Battle of the Wabash - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2008-08-21T16:04:00.001-04:00

Battle of the Wabash

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

The 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe was also once known as the Battle of the Wabash.

Battle of the Wabash

Part of the Northwest Indian War

Date
November 4, 1791

Location
near present-day Fort Recovery, Ohio

Result
Overwhelming Native American victory

Belligerents

Western Confederacy
United States

Commanders

Little Turtle,
Blue Jacket,
Buckongahelas
Arthur St. Clair,
Richard Butler †

Strength

1000
1000

Casualties and losses

21 killed and 40 wounded
total: 61
623 soldiers killed or captured
258 soldiers wounded
24 workers killed,
14 wounded
33 women killed
total:952

[hide]

v • d • e

Northwest Indian War

Logan's Raid – Hardin's Defeat – Harmar's Defeat – Big Bottom – Dunlap's Station – St. Clair's Defeat – Fort Recovery – Fallen Timbers

The Battle of the Wabash, also known as St. Clair's Defeat and the Battle of Wabash River, was fought on November 4, 1791, in the Northwest Territory between the United States and the Western Confederacy of American Indians, as part of the Northwest Indian War. It was a major Native American victory.

The American Indians were led by Little Turtle of the Miamis, Blue Jacket of the Shawnees, and Buckongahelas of the Delawares (Lenape), who led his 480 men to join the 700 warriors of Little Turtle and Blue Jacket. In comparison, the opposing force of about 1000 Americans were led by General Arthur St. Clair who had proved to be an able commander during the American Revolutionary War. However, the Indian confederacy eventually was victorious. The battle was the most severe defeat ever suffered by the United States at the hands of American Indians; indeed, in proportional terms of losses to strength it was the worst defeat that United States forces have ever suffered in battle. As a result, President George Washington forced St. Clair to resign his post, and Congress initiated its first investigation of the executive branch. Of the 1,000 troops that Saint Clair led into battle, only 48 escaped.

Contents
[show]

1 Background

2 The campaign

3 Aftermath

4 References

5 External links

[edit] Background

The Treaty of Paris of 1783, which ended the War of American Independence, recognized United States sovereignty of all the land east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakes. The Indian tribes in the Old Northwest, however, were not parties to this treaty, and many of them, especially leaders such as Little Turtle and Blue Jacket, refused to recognize American claims to the area northwest of the Ohio River. During the mid- and late 1780s, white settlers in Kentucky and travelers on and north of the river suffered approximately 1500 deaths during the ongoing hostilities, in which white settlers often retaliated against Indians. As a result of the continual violence, President Washington and his Secretary of War, Henry Knox, decided to use military force to pacify the region.

A force of 1,453 men (320 Regular U.S. Troops and 1,133 militia) under Brigadier General Josiah Harmar marched northwards from Fort Washington on the Ohio River at 10:00 a.m. on October 7, 1790. On October 22, near present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana, Harmar committed only 400 of his men under Col. John Hardin to attack an Indian force of some 1,100 warriors. When a courier informed Harmar (rumored to be drunk) of the size of the enemy force, out of fear he refused to come to Hardin's aid. Had he supported Colonel Hardin with the other 800-900 men, the Indian force might have been defeated. Instead, Harmar formed his portion of the army into a hollow defensive square, and did not move. Hardin, expecting reinforcements, put up a valiant fight for over three hours, then fell back to the main army's encampment and Harmar ordered a retreat back to Ft. Washington. (See main article: Hardin's Defeat).

At least 129 of Hardin's troops (14 officers, 115 enlisted) were killed in action and another 94 wounded, for a total of 223 casualties. Estimates of total Indian casualties, killed and wounded, range from 120 to 150. George Washington then ordered St. Clair, who served both as governor of the Northwest Territory and as a major general in the army, to mount a more vigorous effort by summer 1791. Congress agreed to fund the expedition as well as to authorize the raising of an additional U.S. Army regiment for the purpose, bringing the total number of army regiments in existence to just two (the 1st and 2nd American Regiments). St. Clair augmented this force with Kentucky militia as well as five battalions of six-month levies.

[edit] The campaign

While Washington was adamant that St. Clair move north in the summer months, various logistics and supply problems greatly slowed his preparations in Fort Washington (present-day Cincinnati, Ohio). The new recruits were poorly trained and disciplined, the food supplies substandard, and the horses, low in number, were of poor quality. The expedition thus failed to set out until October 1791. Building supply posts as it advanced, the army's objective was the town of Kekionga, the capital of the Miami tribe, near present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana.

When it did get underway, the force, including some 200-250 camp followers (wives, children, laundresses, and prostitutes) numbered around 1,486. Going was slow and discipline problems were severe; St. Clair, suffering from gout, had difficulty maintaining order, especially among the militia and the new levies. The force was constantly shadowed by Indians, and skirmishes occasionally erupted.

By the end of November 2, through desertion and illness, St. Clair's force had been whittled down to around 1,120, including the camp followers. He had 52 officers and 868 enlisted and militia present for duty on November 3. At dawn on November 4, St. Clair's force was camped near the present-day location of Fort Recovery, Ohio. An Indian force consisting of around 1,000 warriors, led by Little Turtle, Blue Jacket, and Tecumseh, struck quickly and, surprising the Americans, soon overran their perimeter. The Americans almost immediately collapsed into disorder. St. Clair had three horses shot out from under him as he tried in vain to rally his troops, many of whom hid beneath wagons and behind trees despite goading from their commander (who at one point moved among them chanting "Cowards, cowards, cowards,") and from female camp followers.

The casualty rate was the highest percentage ever suffered by a United States Army, and included St. Clair's second in command. Of the 52 officers engaged, 39 were killed and 7 wounded, around 88% of all officers became casualties. After two hours, St. Clair ordered a retreat, which quickly turned into a rout. "It was, in fact, a flight," St. Clair described a few days later in a letter to the Secretary of War. The American casualty rate, among the soldiers, was 97.4 percent, including 632 of 920 killed (69%), and 264 wounded. Nearly all of the 200 camp followers were slaughtered, for a total of 832 Americans killed. Approximately one-quarter of the entire standing United States Army had been wiped out. Only 24 of the 920 troops engaged came out of it unscathed. Indian casualties were about 61, with at least 21 killed. The number of soldiers killed alone was more than three times the number the Sioux would kill 85 years later at Custer's last stand at the Little Big Horn. The next day the remnants of the force arrived at the nearest U.S. outpost, Fort Jefferson (then Fort Hamilton) and from there returned to Fort Washington.

Casualty statistics from "That Dark and Bloody River", by Allan W. Eckert, Bantam Books, December 1995.

[edit] Aftermath

St. Clair himself soon traveled to the national capital at Philadelphia to report on what had happened. Blaming the quartermaster as well as the War Department, the general asked for a court-martial in order to gain exoneration and planned to resign his commission after winning it. Washington, however, denied him the court-martial and forced St. Clair's immediate resignation.

The House of Representatives, meanwhile, began its own investigation into the disaster. This was the first investigation that Congress had ever undertaken, as well as the first investigation of the executive branch, and as part of the proceedings, the House committee in charge of the investigation sought certain documents from the War Department. Knox brought this matter to Washington's attention, and because of the major separation of powers issues involved, the president summoned a meeting of all of his department heads (Knox, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, and Attorney General Edmund Randolph). This was one of the first meetings of all of these officials together, and some scholars consider this occasion the beginning of the Cabinet.

At this and subsequent meetings, the president and his advisers established, in theory, the concept that the executive branch should refuse to hand over any papers or materials that the public good required them to keep secret, and that at any rate they not hand over any originals. This is the earliest appearance of the doctrine of executive privilege, which later became a major separation of powers issue in matters such as Aaron Burr's treason trial, Watergate, the Iran-Contra affair, and the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. In the end, though, Washington authorized the release of copies of the materials that the committee sought.

The final committee report sided largely with St. Clair, finding that Knox and other War Department officials had done a poor job of raising, equipping, and supplying St. Clair's expedition. Other than issuing these findings, however, neither the committee nor the House of representatives took any further steps, such as recommending impeachment.

In 1794, a new U.S. force under Major General "Mad Anthony" Wayne achieved what St. Clair had not when he decisively defeated the Indians of the Old Northwest at the Battle of Fallen Timbers

[edit] References

Sugden, John, Blue Jacket: Warrior of the Shawnees. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2000. ISBN 0-8032-4288-3.

Sword, Wiley, President Washington's Indian War: The Struggle for the Old Northwest, 1790-1795. Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985. ISBN 0-8061-1864-4 (hardcover); ISBN 0-8061-2488-1 (paperback).

Guthman, William H., March to Massacre: A History of the First Seven Years of the United States Army. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970. ISBN 0-07-025297-1.

[edit] External links

Officers killed at St. Clair's Defeat

Wilbur Edel, Kekionga!: The Worst Defeat in the History of the U.S. Army

St. Clair's Defeat folk song

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Wabash"

Battle of the Wabash - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kevin Kelly on the next 5,000 days of the web | Video on TED.com

2008-08-13T23:26:00.001-04:00

Kevin Kelly on the next 5,000 days of the web | Video on TED.com

Technorati Tags: kevin kelly,the web

Alternative Fuels Expansion With Hydrocarbons – Future of Biofuels - Popular Mechanics

2008-06-24T21:49:00.000-04:00

Alternative Fuels Expansion With Hydrocarbons – Future of Biofuels - Popular Mechanics: "Amyris first studied the highest performing compounds of diesel, gasoline and jet fuel, then tinkered with the genetic structures of E. coli and yeast to produce bioequivalents, Renninger says, leveraging the same cutting-edge technology previously employed to produce pharmaceutical-quality medicines at commodity-level prices. The company recently announced a deal with the Brazilian sugar and ethanol manufacturer Crystalsev to launch a joint facility south of São Paulo, giving Amyris access to 2 million tons of sugar to feed its mutated strains of yeast. It projects commercial production of some 30 million gallons of diesel as early as 2010, with production of gasoline and jet fuel roughly one and two years behind, respectively."

Slavery By Another Name | Douglas A. Blackmon

2008-06-16T10:23:00.001-04:00

The author did a session on Booktv. This book tells the history of a massive forced labor system in the south that kept defacto slavery in effect until the beginning of WWII. Nothing I can think of will change your view of American history as much as his work will.

Slavery By Another Name | Douglas A. Blackmon

Technorati Tags: Douglas A. Blackmon,Slavery by Another Name

Lander gets close-up of Mars dirt - Mars- msnbc.com

2008-06-15T08:34:00.001-04:00

Lander gets close-up of Mars dirt - Mars- msnbc.com

The step by step analysis of the soil in this article shows just how much we don't know about the red planet. Each sentence presents broad vistas of the environment on Mars. What material will we find? The adventure awaits.

Technorati Tags: Mars,soil sample

Cosmology, Astrophysics – “Stephen Hawking’s Universe” – 1/6

2008-06-09T21:44:00.003-04:00

Cosmology, Astrophysics – “Stephen Hawking’s Universe” – 1/6

Stephan Hawking and others review the state of physics today.

TED | Talks | Susan Blackmore: Memes and "temes" (video)

2008-06-09T21:05:00.002-04:00

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/269

more about "TED | Talks | Susan Blackmore: Memes ...", posted with vodpod

Proposed Tests for Dark Energy

2008-06-04T10:55:00.001-04:00

Last year a committee from the National Academy of Sciences recommended that a dark energy observatory be the next mission in an astrophysics program called Beyond Einstein.

There are now three competitors angling for the job: Dr. Perlmutter’s SNAP, for Supernova Acceleration Probe; Adept, or Advanced Dark Energy Telescope, led by Charles Bennett of Johns Hopkins; and Destiny, for Dark Energy Space Telescope, led by Tod Lauer of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson.

Also in the works, just to add spice, is a European mission known as Euclid, which could fly in 2017, if it is approved by the European Space Agency. NASA and the Department of Energy, working together, expect to make a final selection for the dark energy mission — known colloquially as J-dem for Joint Dark Energy Mission — next spring and launch it in the middle of the next decade.

That sounds like progress, but some astronomers, including the former members of the academy committee itself, have complained that $600 million is less than half of the $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion the academy committee estimated was necessary to do the job. In a recent letter to Michael Salamon, NASA scientist in charge of the project, 11 of the committee members, including both of its chairmen, urged NASA to raise the cost cap on the mission, writing, “Cutting the budget in half would probably make the attainment of these goals impossible.”

NASA’s $600 million does not include the cost of launching the satellite, so the discrepancy is not as big as it looks. But in Baltimore, Jon Morse, director of astrophysics at NASA headquarters, warned that if the astronomers wanted to spend a billion dollars, some other astronomy mission would have to come off the table.

After Years of Effort, Dark Energy Still Puzzles Scientists - NYTimes.com

Technorati Tags: Beyond Einstein,Supernova Acceleration Probe,Advanced Dark Energy Telescope,Dark Energy Space Telescope

Dark Energy - early history

2008-06-04T10:01:00.001-04:00

The trouble started in 1998 when two competing teams of astronomers, one led by Saul Perlmutter of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California and the other by Brian Schmidt of the Australian National University, discovered that the expansion of the universe was inexplicably accelerating.

Both teams were using a kind of exploding star known as a Type 1a supernova as standard candles — objects whose distance can be inferred from their apparent brightness and a few other tricks of the trade — to investigate the history and fate of the universe. They found, on the basis of a few dozen of these stars, that the more distant ones were dimmer than expected, meaning that they had been carried farther away by the cosmic expansion than expected, meaning that the universe was speeding up. The car keys were streaking for the ceiling.

The groups quibble about who saw and said what first, but they have shared in a cavalcade of awards and prizes, among them the $1 million Shaw Prize in 2006 and the $500,000 Gruber Cosmology Prize, awarded last fall at Cambridge University in England, where Dr. Perlmutter and Dr. Schmidt lectured jointly, trading sentences.

Since then myriad collaborations have joined in the hunt for these exploding stars. In Baltimore, Dr. Perlmutter reported on a new analysis of “the world’s data set,” more than 300 supernovas observed by various groups, which he said would provide the tightest constraints on the nature of dark energy “for at least the next 15 minutes.”

After Years of Effort, Dark Energy Still Puzzles Scientists - NYTimes.com

Technorati Tags: dark energy,Saul Perlmutter,Brian Schmidt

Photos boost belief Mars lander has bared ice - Mars- msnbc.com

2008-06-01T18:43:00.001-04:00

This photo could be a step to the discovery of other life forms. If any level or biological activity is found on Mars, we have a new reality to consider.

Photos boost belief Mars lander has bared ice - Mars- msnbc.com

StumbleVideo - Building the Universe

2008-04-30T11:04:00.001-04:00

This is a very interesting video that I want to finish watching.

StumbleVideo - Building the Universe

Did pre-big bang universe leave its mark on the sky? - space - 10 April 2008 - New Scientist Space

2008-04-11T14:59:00.001-04:00

This article might give us a way to check for a pre-big bang universe.

In cosmological models based on a theory called loop quantum gravity, our universe has a parent. Loop quantum gravity attempts to meld relativity with quantum mechanics by describing space-time as a constantly rearranging fabric of interconnections. On the smallest scales, around 10^-35 meters, that fabric is a tangled mess, but on much larger scales the space and time of our universe look smooth.

The theory predicts that when this fabric is scrunched up, it becomes bouncy. So if the universe before ours was contracting, it would have reached a point of maximum density and then bounced out again in our big bang.

So what would this predecessor have been like? To find out, Parampreet Singh of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, and Alejandro Corichi of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Morelia, applied the equations of loop quantum gravity to a highly simplified model of the universe. They found that the properties of space, such as the quantity of matter and energy it contains, hardly change when the universe goes through the big bounce. "For the simple model considered, the universe is almost exactly the same on other side," says Singh.

It raises the possibility that we could see an imprint of the universe before ours. Singh suggests that the seeds of large-scale structures in our universe, such as superclusters of galaxies, would have been present on the pre-big-bang side. The pattern of those seeds might be preserved in the cosmic microwave background radiation - the relic radiation left behind by the big bang. "If this conclusion holds true, then it is possible that we are going to see signatures of the pre-big-bang universe," says Singh.

Did pre-big bang universe leave its mark on the sky? - space - 10 April 2008 - New Scientist Space

Technorati Tags: loop quantum gravity

Ask Michio: If parallel universes exist, can they collide? - Michio Kaku

2008-04-10T08:47:00.001-04:00

I have discovered Michio Kaku. He is a great explainer of science to the layman. Try the explanation below to see if it doesn't explain cosmology better than you knew it before.

This is the first time I have heard about the Big Splat. Michio Kaku's link is

mkaku.org

If parallel universes exist, can they collide?
Matthew
England

Michio: Probably. The latest cosmological data comes from the WMAP satellite currently orbiting the earth. The data is consistent with “inflation,” i.e. the idea that the universe began in a super turbo-charged expansion at the instant of the big bang. However, inflation is also a quantum theory, i.e. there is a finite probability that if inflation happened once, it can happen again, and again. In fact, big bangs may be happening all the time, even as you read this sentence. There may be a continual creation of universes.

In other words, our universe is probably a bubble of some sort which is expanding. But inflation theory seems to indicate that we may not be the only bubble/universe. Think of a bubble bath, in which there are innumerable soap bubbles floating, sometimes colliding, sometimes breaking in half, sometimes popping in and out of existence. This is the “multiverse” picture which seems to be emerging from inflation theory.

Inflation theory, however, cannot explain the dynamics of these bubble/universes. Inflation simply states that such a turbo-charged expansion took place, but inflation does not explain why inflation took place in the first place, or what drives it. For that, we need a higher theory, such as string theory (or its latest version, M-theory, where M stands for membrane).

In M-theory, there are innumerable membranes floating in a much larger arena (11 dimensional hyperspace). We live on the skin of one such bubble which lives in 3 dimensional space. However, there may be other “branes” floating in 11 dimensional hyperspace. The physicists at Princeton calculated what would happen if two such branes collided. Much to their surprise, they found that the two branes would merge and create a shock wave. By analyzing this shock wave, they found that it resembled the big bang itself. In fact, they were led to believe that this WAS the big bang. This theory is now called the Big Splat theory, and is one of the serious candidates for the underlying big bang theory.

Ask Michio: If parallel universes exist, can they collide? - Michio Kaku

Technorati Tags: the big splat,multiple universes,branes,hyperspace

Scientists to Fly Paper Plane From Space - AOL News

2008-03-28T10:08:00.001-04:00

KASHIWA, Japan (March 27) - Japanese scientists and origami masters hope to launch a paper airplane from space and learn from its trip back to Earth.

In a test outside Tokyo in early February, a prototype about 2.8 inches long and 2 inches wide survived Mach 7 speeds and broiling temperatures up to 446 degrees Fahrenheit in a hypersonic wind tunnel - conditions meant to approximate what the plane would face entering Earth's atmosphere.

Scientists to Fly Paper Plane From Space - AOL News

TED | Talks | Karen Armstrong: 2008 TED Prize wish: Charter for Compassion (video)

2008-03-21T13:03:00.001-04:00

TED | Talks | Karen Armstrong: 2008 TED Prize wish: Charter for Compassion (video)

Technorati Tags: Karen Armstrong,The Golden Rule

Flipping particle could explain missing antimatter - fundamentals - 18 March 2008 - New Scientist

2008-03-21T09:55:00.001-04:00

It is one the biggest mysteries in physics - where did all the antimatter go? Now a team of physicists claims to have found the first ever hint of an answer in experimental data. The findings could signal a major crack in the standard model, the theoretical edifice that describes nature's fundamental particles and forces.

In its early days, the cosmos was a cauldron of radiation and equal amounts of matter and antimatter. As it cooled, all the antimatter annihilated in collisions with matter - but for some reason the proportions ended up lopsided, leaving some of the matter intact.

Physicists think the explanation for this lies with the weak nuclear force, which differs from the other fundamental forces in that it does not act equally on matter and antimatter. This asymmetry, called CP violation, could have allowed the matter to survive to form the elements, stars and galaxies we see today.

Flipping particle could explain missing antimatter - fundamentals - 18 March 2008 - New Scientist

Technorati Tags: weak atomic force,matter,anti-matter

Newborn Stars: Seeing Dark Filaments Inside A Molecular Cloud

2008-03-10T12:14:00.001-04:00

ScienceDaily (Mar. 9, 2008) — Astronomers have measured the distribution of mass inside a dark filament in a molecular cloud with an amazing level of detail and to great depth. The measurement is based on a new method that looks at the scattered near-infrared light or 'cloudshine' and was made with ESO's New Technology Telescope. Associated with the forthcoming VISTA telescope, this new technique will allow astronomers to better understand the cradles of newborn stars.

While dark matter was not mentioned in this article, I will be watching to see if it is affected. This method will obviously tell us more about the birth of stars.

Newborn Stars: Seeing Dark Filaments Inside A Molecular Cloud

Technorati Tags: astronomy,dark matter

World History and Science

2008-02-08T11:25:00.001-05:00

Newcomen's Engine

The Industrial Revolution began with a change in the minds of some people in the 1600's but one of the first practical applications of this new mindset was the atmospheric engine invented by Newcomen. For the first time, men had an engine that used a transportable energy source.

Wikipedia Article

Newcomen and Global Warming

Thomas Newcomen may come to be seen as the man who, although he didn’t necessarily sign humanity’s death warrant, certainly wrote the first draft. Clearly he didn’t have the benefit of hindsight, and removing water from mines was a good idea, but once humanity had a taste of the power that fossil fuels could give, and the extraordinarily concentrated energy they embodied, we were hooked. The rest, as they say, is history.

My response

Newcomen wrote the first draft of humanity’s death warrant!! What myopia! What a great example of being caught in the intellectual mire of our own time! We are in the midst of a great challenge but why be caught by the most pessimistic viewpoint of the outcome. A more realistic outcome will be achieved by people like Newcomen. People, who take a chance. People, who engineer. People, who will move our civilization off carbon based energy to the newer forms that are talked of everywhere on this Internet. Listen! We are about to revolutionize energy production. Look at the number of articles! This is not the world of the 1970’s . Luddites take ten giant steps to the rear. The future does not favor your position. Newcomen is the technical father of that world to come as well as this one. I’ll be contributing to his monument fund.

This engine was the master of simplicity, but it never would have existed without scientific interest in atmospheric pressure.

World History and Science

Technorati Tags: Newcomen,steam engine,industrial revolution,global warming,watt

Columbus May Have Brought Syphilis To Europe From New World

2008-01-24T11:07:00.001-05:00

New studies are reinforcing the view that syphilis came from the New World. This disease as much more severe during the Renaissance. The new findings demonstrate early global disease pathways.

Columbus May Have Brought Syphilis To Europe From New World

Technorati Tags: syphilis,columbus,new world,global disease

The House on The Rock

2008-01-24T08:26:00.001-05:00

Chris takes a tour of The House on The Rock and finds the biggest carrousel in the world Out of Town www.outoftown.tv - A Flavorpill Production, Sponsored by Urban Experiment, Video by m ss ng p eces

The Diary of Anne Frank

2008-01-23T10:46:00.001-05:00

Today the story of Anne Frank has reached far. Anne was a young vibrant intellegent girl who died in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz-Berkenau when she was only a few months from her 16th birthday. Through her travail she never swayed from her wisdom, courage and love of humanity. She died of typhus only a few days after her sister died in the camp from the same disease. Tragically, Anne died only a few weeks before the prisoners of Auschwitz-Birkenau were rescued and freed by the Allied army in 1945.

from womennewsnetwork.vod

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Year 1999 A.D.

2008-01-17T14:37:00.001-05:00

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Year 1999 A.D.

Link

1999

This is much better than the usual prediction. Predictions do more to form the future by causing us to think about it than they do as predictions.

YouTube - Big Bang 2of4: Dark Energy and the Early Universe

2008-01-11T18:17:00.001-05:00

My Thoughts

This video adds more comprehension to the events of the big bang.

World History and Science

2008-01-04T11:39:00.001-05:00

World History and Science

Barbara Forrest details the history of the intelligent design community in the Dover School Board case. She is straight forward and clear about their basically dishonest approach. The viewers can judge for themselves if creationist arguments in this case are honest.

If I find myself denying that I am something that I am fully aware that I really am, I have to call that a lie. I don't know how conservative Christians get by that fact. Watch and hear about what they did.

Technorati Tags: Creationism,ID,Intelligent design,Dover,Judge Jones,Barbara Forrest,CFI

Science advisers give fresh boost to evolution - Science- msnbc.com

2008-01-04T10:10:00.001-05:00

In a newly published report, scientific advisers to the government emphasize the importance of teaching evolution in public schools.

The report by the National Academy of Sciences and its Institute of Medicine follows up on similar past publications, the last of which came out in 1999. The new document, titled "Science, Evolution and Creationism," includes recently discovered evidence supporting evolution — including the 375 million-year-old "Tiktaalik" fossil, which researchers say blends characteristics of a crocodile and a fish.

Science advisers give fresh boost to evolution - Science- msnbc.com

Technorati Tags: evolution,NAS,national academy of sciences,intelligent design,ID,Chris Comer,Josh Rosenau

Science, Evolution and Creationism

Obama's Victory Speech

2008-01-04T07:33:00.001-05:00

One of the best political speeches I've seen in a long while.

from election08.vodpod.co

Atoms: Part 1 - THE CLASH OF THE TITANS

2007-12-24T00:18:00.001-05:00

I have yet to watch this but it is on the list.

StumbleVideo - Sioux_Ghost_Dance_-_Thomas_A_Edison_1894_.avi.mpeg

2007-12-24T00:12:00.001-05:00

StumbleVideo - Sioux_Ghost_Dance_-_Thomas_A_Edison_1894_.avi.mpeg

This amazing video was taken just a few years after Wounded Knee.

Bay City, Michigan History: Pere Marquette Depot Roof - Bay City#links

2007-12-07T12:11:00.000-05:00

Bay City, Michigan History: Pere Marquette Depot Roof - Bay City#links

History is being made on the web everyday. This example of construction in Bay City, Michigan is important on several levels. It documents the construction technique. It documents the building, itself, and the buildings around it at the time of construction. Finally, it documents the people involved in the construction. If this was done properly all these people, items and buildings could be tagged. But, I'm thankful for the great advances we have made.

Directory of FREE Online Books and FREE e-books

2007-12-07T10:20:00.001-05:00

Directory of FREE Online Books and FREE e-books

This source contains thousands of books..Many can be downloaded in a PDF format. This is the source of the book listing Great Lakes Captains.

Technorati Tags: History,free books,e-books,ebooks,research sources

Nova Account of the Jamestown Settlement

2007-11-30T11:16:00.001-05:00

This week Nova has run an excellent account of the Jamestown, the first permanent settlement in English North America. The program relates that previous to about ten years ago scholars believed that the old fort was gone forever underneath the James River. That is what I heard when I was there in 1970. That was wrong however. The fort is found and with it the story that is told here.

It is a story not of lazy gentlemen but of craftsman that were out to make money fast on the great resources of the new world.

The Native American story is told as well with actual members of the tribes involved taking on historical roles.

The program will add a great deal to your knowledge of the era.

Nanotechnology

2007-10-31T10:59:00.000-04:00

ScienceDaily () -- Nanotechnology has already brought advances such as self-cleaning windows and energy-efficient LED lighting, and could soon deliver medical breakthroughs. To educate the public about nanotechnology's promise, the National Science Foundation has slated $20 million to fund a network of interactive exhibits at 100 museums around the country.

Link

Robert Pastors View of NAFTA's Next Step

2007-10-24T10:34:00.001-04:00

NAFTA’s setbacks have been due partly to failures of compliance - related to sugar, softwood lumber, trucking - but mostly to what it omitted. The income gap between Mexico and its northern neighbors has not narrowed. Illegal migration has increased. Bureaucratic duplication on the border, combined with inadequate infrastructure and divergent regulatory policies, has raised transaction costs above the level of the tariffs that were eliminated. If Europe built too many institutions, NAFTA made the opposite mistake. It lacks institutions to anticipate or respond to crises or take advantage of opportunities. We also lack a vision of an inclusive identity that would inspire citizens of all three countries to think of themselves also as North Americans. Indeed, NAFTA is little more than two bilateral relationships that rely on old habits and too often an unproductive paternalism by the United States.

The US Federal government's denial of the NAU proposal is amazing after reading several of these pronouncements from people who are authorized to attend conferences held without media presence but with high rankings government officials like George Schultz. Read more and decide for yourself what is happening.

Link

Tags: NAFTA, Robert Pastor, CFR. NAU, North American Union

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USS Liberty - a reality snapshot

2007-10-19T10:02:00.000-04:00

This is one of the most revealing videos an American could ever see. It describes the actions of the federal government in dealing with the 34 deaths on the USS Liberty in 1967. It leaves me with the opinion that we will never be told for sure what happened that day. I find it very difficult to believe that the attack was an accident. As an ex-navy officer, I know that surveillance ships look like nothing else and that navy customs and procedures in the sixties would have made it very unlikely that the Liberty had no flag either on the jack staff or on the mast.

Tags: USS Liberty, six day war, Israel, Nasser, Egypt,

Tags: McNamera

Coup de couleur

2007-10-17T08:25:00.001-04:00

Poésie sans parole
pleine de couleurs
féérie d'octobre
Cascades et riviere Beauport,Quebec

The World of Byzantium

2007-10-16T08:32:00.000-04:00

This video from The Learning Channel is an hour and forty minutes of inspiration on the making of an historical video.

Wedgit

2007-09-13T12:11:00.000-04:00

Reality and Richard Dawkins

2007-09-13T10:41:00.000-04:00

Link

Richard Dawkins explains how our minds give us only a view of reality that is appropriate to the scale we have evolved at. We have evolved in a sort of middle world. We reside in neither the smallest scale nor in the largest scale. We see things in that world.

Things that evolved at other scales would see a different reality.

Time team S14 SE03 - Jamestown USA

2007-08-24T09:05:00.001-04:00

The team travel to Jamestown Virginnia to work alongside their american counterparts, to help uncover America's birthplace. There are some amazing well preserved artifacts discovered at the bottom of a well.

Time Team 2001 episode 1

2007-08-24T09:00:00.001-04:00

Norman Liconshire

First Post on World History and Science

2007-08-24T08:57:00.000-04:00

This blog with deal with world history and with the science of historical discovery.