Stanley Kubrick on God(s)
"I will say that the God concept is at the heart of 2001 but not any traditional, anthropomorphic image of God. I don't believe in any of Earth's monotheistic religions, but I do believe that one can construct an intriguing scientific definition of God, once you accept the fact that there are approximately 100 billion stars in our galaxy alone, that each star is a life-giving sun and that there are approximately 100 billion galaxies in just the visible universe. Given a planet in a stable orbit, not too hot and not too cold, and given a few billion years of chance chemical reactions created by the interaction of a sun's energy on the planet's chemicals, it's fairly certain that life in one form or another will eventually emerge. It's reasonable to assume that there must be, in fact, countless billions of such planets where biological life has arisen, and the odds of some proportion of such life developing intelligence are high. Now, the sun is by no means an old star, and its planets are mere children in cosmic age, so it seems likely that there are billions of planets in the universe not only where intelligent life is on a lower scale than man but other billions where it is approximately equal and others still where it is hundreds of thousands of millions of years in advance of us. When you think of the giant technological strides that man has made in a few millennia - less than a microsecond in the chronology of the universe - can you imagine the evolutionary development that much older life forms have taken? They may have progressed from biological species, which are fragile shells for the mind at best, into immortal machine entities - and then, over innumerable eons, they could emerge from the chrysalis of matter transformed into beings of pure energy and spirit. Their potentialities would be limitless and their intelligence ungraspable by humans."
The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
Be somewhat careful if you're invited to dinner at these guys' house:
http://www.vhemt.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_human_extinction_movement
"Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, or VHEMT ("vehement"), is a website that calls for the voluntary extinction of the human race."
http://www.vhemt.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_human_extinction_movement
"Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, or VHEMT ("vehement"), is a website that calls for the voluntary extinction of the human race."
The Dimetrodon
In the third planet of the Solar system, there once was a mammal-like reptile called the Dimetrodon. This animal is thought to be a possible ancestor of contemporary human mammals:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Dimetrodon.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimetrodon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Dimetrodon.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimetrodon
The Multicolored Sun
In blue: http://www.lmsal.com/YPOP/ProjectionRoom/latest_EIT_171.html
Green: http://www.lmsal.com/YPOP/ProjectionRoom/latest_EIT_195.html
Dark-yellow: http://www.lmsal.com/YPOP/ProjectionRoom/latest_EIT_284.html
Blazzing orange: http://www.lmsal.com/YPOP/ProjectionRoom/latest_SXT_full.html
And Gray: http://www.lmsal.com/YPOP/ProjectionRoom/latest_MDI_MAG.html
But on close-up it's this that's happening there: http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/sci_nat/02/sunspot/img/sunspot_popup_485.jpg
Side view: http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/sechtml/big2.jpg
Green: http://www.lmsal.com/YPOP/ProjectionRoom/latest_EIT_195.html
Dark-yellow: http://www.lmsal.com/YPOP/ProjectionRoom/latest_EIT_284.html
Blazzing orange: http://www.lmsal.com/YPOP/ProjectionRoom/latest_SXT_full.html
And Gray: http://www.lmsal.com/YPOP/ProjectionRoom/latest_MDI_MAG.html
But on close-up it's this that's happening there: http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/sci_nat/02/sunspot/img/sunspot_popup_485.jpg
Side view: http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/sechtml/big2.jpg
Island Universes
"Island Universes: Galaxies are the lighthouses that plumb the Universe - constituents of the largest-scale texture we know.
(...)
Our appreciation of the universe beyond the Milky Way is entirely an achievement of the twentieth century. (...) By the 1920s, photography had revealed that there must be tens of thousands of these objects, by then known as white nebulae to distinguish them from the clearly different gaseous nebulae such as the famous Orion Nebula, accessible to the telescopes of the time. They showed a variety of spiral, elongated, or oval forms. The most plausible theories to account for these nebulae made them either nearby objects - perhaps planetary systems in formation - or extremely distant, truly "island universes" of which our Milky Way, hitherto the entire known Universe, would be merely one among myriads."
http://www.astr.ua.edu/goodies/data_resources/galaxies.text
(...)
Our appreciation of the universe beyond the Milky Way is entirely an achievement of the twentieth century. (...) By the 1920s, photography had revealed that there must be tens of thousands of these objects, by then known as white nebulae to distinguish them from the clearly different gaseous nebulae such as the famous Orion Nebula, accessible to the telescopes of the time. They showed a variety of spiral, elongated, or oval forms. The most plausible theories to account for these nebulae made them either nearby objects - perhaps planetary systems in formation - or extremely distant, truly "island universes" of which our Milky Way, hitherto the entire known Universe, would be merely one among myriads."
http://www.astr.ua.edu/goodies/data_resources/galaxies.text
Oh, the Gravity!
"What is the evidence that gravity is a pulling force? Nothing."
http://www.biochem.szote.u-szeged.hu/astrojan/gravity.htm
http://www.biochem.szote.u-szeged.hu/astrojan/gravity.htm
Welcome to Raggit
http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/M31NMmosaicLL.html
Try this exercice in the above link: scroll till the right-bottom corner, now pick one of the bright dots. A medium sized one. Now think about how everything you have and know is much smaller than that bright dot. Then scroll the image slowly upwards by pressing the up cursor.
Try this exercice in the above link: scroll till the right-bottom corner, now pick one of the bright dots. A medium sized one. Now think about how everything you have and know is much smaller than that bright dot. Then scroll the image slowly upwards by pressing the up cursor.
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