Neil deGrasse Tyson gives a very interesting talk. To me, he really rips it up.
Short version:
By watching this one, you get the gist of his point. But, you might miss a lot of important context worth hearing. And what is the main point? We have a lot to lose when we displace the drive for discovery with blissful ignorance.
Full version:
You get to see Tyson really build up his case against the real harm that comes from embracing Intelligent Design as a real part of science.
Showing posts with label death by black hole. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death by black hole. Show all posts
Friday, April 20, 2012
Friday, April 9, 2010
Numberwareness
I've heard the speculation that a person's perspective of human kind's centeredness in the cosmos is directly proportional with one's understanding of math.
Among the industrialized democracies, the United States lags behind in primary and secondary education. Math does not seem to be an exception. Also, I am no exception within this scenario and I long to better understand the important skill of understanding numbers. So, to do my part to educate myself and any who will listen, I will share some interesting comparisons that I've recently read. Perhaps this information could help us put ourselves and our cosmos into perspective-- a perspective largely described using numbers:
If that doesn't put the universe into perspective, then take out the time to listen to what Carl Sagan has to say about our planet, the Pale Blue Dot:
A very humbling discourse indeed.
In light of all of this-- who are we to be cruel to one another? Who are we to think we are so much better than anyone who is different from us? Who are we to ever think that our minds are so high, that we don't have to turn skepticism towards ourselves?
Whether there be a god or not, each individual person is way too small to treat anyone else of lesser size.
To me, these humbling insights reveal the importance of "Numberwareness".
Sources:
Death By Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries by Neil deGrasse Tyson
Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief by Dale McGowan, Molleen Matsumura, Amanda Metskas, and Jan Devor.
In other words, the less math a person understands, the more likely that person will think human kind is the apex and center of the Universe. However, the more math a person understands, the more that person will realize humanity is not even a blip when considering the grand scale of the Universe. Again, this is speculation.
Among the industrialized democracies, the United States lags behind in primary and secondary education. Math does not seem to be an exception. Also, I am no exception within this scenario and I long to better understand the important skill of understanding numbers. So, to do my part to educate myself and any who will listen, I will share some interesting comparisons that I've recently read. Perhaps this information could help us put ourselves and our cosmos into perspective-- a perspective largely described using numbers:
If you count at a rate of one number per second, you will need to count for practically 12 days before you reach one million.
At this same rate, you will need to count for 32 years to reach one billion (109).
To finally count to one trillion, you will need 32,000 years.
*****
McDonald's claims to have served one hundred billion customers. If you took one hundred billion hamburgers and laid them end to end, the burger chain could circle the Earth 230 times! No wonder we've got obesity problems!
And you'd still have burgers left over to stack to the moon and back!
Those people at McDonald's are some rich Mo'Fo's.
*****
If a person making $25,000 a year finds $0.25 on the side walk, then this is the same proportion to Bill Gates finding $25,000 laying around on the floor somewhere! In other words, $25,000 is merely twenty-five cents when compared to Bill Gates' wealth!
No wonder he can donate a billion dollars to AIDS research and not blink!
No wonder Gates only wants the world to use Windows!
(That Linux hater. Grrrrrr . . .)
*****
If we placed a soccer ball in the middle of a soccer field to represent the Sun, we'd have to walk about ten paces from our soccer ball to represent the distance between the Sun and Mercury. About 20 paces away from Mercury would be the Earth-- Venus would fall somewhere in between. The moon would rest about an inch away from the Earth at this proportion. Amazingly, this is the furthest any human has ever physically ventured so far.
Jupiter would be found about 130 paces away from Earth in our "soccer field rendition" of the solar system. And Pluto would end up being half a mile away from the soccer ball which represents our Sun.
The nearest star? We'd have to fly 4000 miles away from our soccer ball to represent Proxima Centauri, the closet star to our planet besides our Sun.
Now try to consider the countless stars our telescopes can see.
*****
If that doesn't put the universe into perspective, then take out the time to listen to what Carl Sagan has to say about our planet, the Pale Blue Dot:
A very humbling discourse indeed.
In light of all of this-- who are we to be cruel to one another? Who are we to think we are so much better than anyone who is different from us? Who are we to ever think that our minds are so high, that we don't have to turn skepticism towards ourselves?
Whether there be a god or not, each individual person is way too small to treat anyone else of lesser size.
To me, these humbling insights reveal the importance of "Numberwareness".
Sources:
Death By Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries by Neil deGrasse Tyson
Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief by Dale McGowan, Molleen Matsumura, Amanda Metskas, and Jan Devor.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Reality check
I had the pleasure of recently reading a book by notable astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. His book is called Death by Black Hole. On page 292 of his book, he discusses how in 1054 A.D., a star in the constellation of Taurus suddenly became brighter. So bright in fact, that the star could be plainly seen during the day for weeks.
Tyson states that the star became brighter by a factor of a million if it were to be seen during the day time.
How many stars do you see out during the day time (besides the Sun)?
(And assuming you don't live where it's sometimes dark during the "day".)
Tyson also writes that both Chinese and Middle Eastern astronomers documented this event. Native Americans in the future territories of the United States made cave drawings depicting the event-- which turned out to be a supernova from some 7,000 years earlier. The light had finally reached Earth by A.D. 1054.
But somehow, the astronomers in Europe omit this event from their logs, even though they kept records of the Heavens much like the a fore mentioned astronomers.
Why?
Tyson argues that due to the authority of the Church at that time, no astronomer in Europe wanted to document a change in the Heavens. The could possibly undermine the authority of the Church. So, (let the Europeans of 1054 tell it)-- that supernova never happened!
That's the Dark Ages, for ya.
To ignore a bright light shining in your face is begging for darkness. Begging for ignorance.
I admit that ignorance can sometimes be easier to embrace. And, I will personally admit that I have embraced ignorance in the past. And I'm sure I'll make the mistake again at some point in my life.
But with a new endeavor to embrace skepticism, I try to ground myself to a system that can hopefully provide me with a reality check when I need one from time to time.
Embracing a delusion takes away your ability to "call in" and make a reality check. When that happens, you're far more likely to be exploited by someone with malformed intentions.
The following link is NOT SAFE FOR WORK, but I invite you to check out the post "The Armor of God" by Greta Christina. It's a long post, but I personally think it's worth the read. If not, at least a quick skim to get the gist of her argument. She's one of the first bloggers I've heard to use the phrase "Reality Check" in terms of religion and skepticism. So, I owe her the credit for the title of my post.
Tyson states that the star became brighter by a factor of a million if it were to be seen during the day time.
How many stars do you see out during the day time (besides the Sun)?
(And assuming you don't live where it's sometimes dark during the "day".)
Tyson also writes that both Chinese and Middle Eastern astronomers documented this event. Native Americans in the future territories of the United States made cave drawings depicting the event-- which turned out to be a supernova from some 7,000 years earlier. The light had finally reached Earth by A.D. 1054.
But somehow, the astronomers in Europe omit this event from their logs, even though they kept records of the Heavens much like the a fore mentioned astronomers.
Why?
Tyson argues that due to the authority of the Church at that time, no astronomer in Europe wanted to document a change in the Heavens. The could possibly undermine the authority of the Church. So, (let the Europeans of 1054 tell it)-- that supernova never happened!
That's the Dark Ages, for ya.
To ignore a bright light shining in your face is begging for darkness. Begging for ignorance.
I admit that ignorance can sometimes be easier to embrace. And, I will personally admit that I have embraced ignorance in the past. And I'm sure I'll make the mistake again at some point in my life.
But with a new endeavor to embrace skepticism, I try to ground myself to a system that can hopefully provide me with a reality check when I need one from time to time.
Embracing a delusion takes away your ability to "call in" and make a reality check. When that happens, you're far more likely to be exploited by someone with malformed intentions.
The following link is NOT SAFE FOR WORK, but I invite you to check out the post "The Armor of God" by Greta Christina. It's a long post, but I personally think it's worth the read. If not, at least a quick skim to get the gist of her argument. She's one of the first bloggers I've heard to use the phrase "Reality Check" in terms of religion and skepticism. So, I owe her the credit for the title of my post.
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