Carl Sagan used this picture, taken from Voyager to talk about the future of human kind and to speculate on the porbabilities of extraterrestrial life, water on other planets and moons, collisions with asteroids, etc. This book of a fabulous 'read'. Sagan was a master story teller whose fundamental understanding of science is unparalleled. Check the following click to get more on this amazing scientist.http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/top10_images_010925-11.html
For you blog response prepare some of you reflections on the first two chapters of "Pale Blue Dot". You may be completely subjective and blatantly emotional or you may be stoic and stuffy. Either way talk good science or philosophy. Post one or two paragraphs and, of course, respond to at least one of your classmates comments.
16 comments:
Well i thouhgt that it was very intresting. I find it annoying though how Sagan keeps saying that the universe is eclectic. it seems like he misuses the word. Aside from that, Sagan makes an intresting point though. Here is my logic in this ... we are humans and we look at an ant as a tiny harmless bug. Yes, in an army of ants they are harmful but a lone ant verse a human. Anyways, then we see a mountain or a canyon and think, wow that is a big canyon. Then we calculate the earth to be 12,760,000 miles in diamater which last time i checked is a lot bigger than the diameter of a coffee can. Then the Voyager decodes it going to travel out to Uranus and turn around to see a tiny blue spec lingering in space. I find it quite humurous that we think stuff is big but it is only in comparison to us. But i think the real question is if the earth is just a pale blue dot, if we went out far enough to look at the milky way and it was a faint red-brown smear even though it is a bahgajillion mega-miles across it only would seem like a tiny smudged "Pale Blue Dot". so what would be big in comparison. Does anyone understand wha ti am saying or am i just talking to a brick? I think it is really neat if you don't then you can go to Uranus and see for your self.
--- Aaron "Beeker" Quay Ulmer ---
i agree also agree with david. I think it is stupid to say that the human race is insignificant. I don't see any other life forms othere than the animals on our planet. It only makes sence to say that we have a purpose to be here. Also i would like to point out that you don't see monkeys shooting off rockets and using us as test animals. It is the humans that sent voyager to go out and research the milky way. Either way i think that david made a good point in arguing that Sagan's comments were "hipocritical"
beeker said that
so how can you say that the universe draws form something but you can't say what it drwas form? That is pointless ot say. It is like saying that a burger is made of something, but no one can say what it is made of. You can't make an opinion of how the universe is eclectic off of something if you don't have knowlege of what it is you are referring to.
I see how Timmy is approaching this and I agree mostly. Such as when he said that because it is beaten in your head doesn't mean you have to follow it. No you don't and that is why there is free will. Faith is something that people choose to either follow or not.
Faith is followed becasue of perserverance. There is something to look forward too. Without faith life seems monotonous and meaningless.
Wymer the same question can be asked about other beliefs.
Darwin:
if life started with a single protazoan then who made it?
How come there aren't protozoans sproning out of the ocean and creating new life forms now?
If this happened then how come i don't have wings? or gills? or a tail? or antlers? wouldn't it still continue?
Big Bang:
If the universe started with a two balls fo hydrogen gas that collided then who made them?
if we can't create elements, then how did the two balls fo hydrogen turn into 126 different elements?
How come more universes aren't being formed in ours? we have hydrogen gas.
Wymer you are technically proving Timmy's point for him. Timmy says you shouldn't shoot for something just because everyone else says so. Then here you come Wymer. You say that you should shoot for the higher grade becasue it is easier to become a lawyer or a doctor, and get a lot of cash. Why is it important? YOur answer is going to be because society says so, or so you can be rich, and have a lot luxury. Well Timmy is right, it is better to do something enjoyable in life, rather than do something that society says is good. There is nothing wrong with having money. Being rich is great. But, you should want to be a lawyer to help for justice to be served, not to have a nice buisness suit. Or you should wnat to be a doctor becasue you want to cure a disease or becasue you like medical stuff. Not becasue you can be rich and a big house to live in.
No one would want to have a job they hate just to make a few extra thousand bucks, verses a job that they loved.
also Wymer, usually you try to use Einstein in your arguments against Timmy. You use him as if he drives your reasoning. Well he dropped out of school, and did what he wanted. Another reason to agree with Timmy.
wymewr is always referring to him during lunch. i never really pay attention too much, mostly becaus ehe is wymer, but it seems like he refers to einstein quite a bit in his arguments.
1) nothing made that protazoan, just a combination of chance and evolution.
2)New life is being discovered everyday. Most of the earth is still largerly unexplored, who is to know that there are not new life forms.
3)The wings, the gills, and the tail were removed at birth.
4)Probability made the congealment of all other matter to form the universe.
5) Humans have created elements. They are called synthetic elements and they are the ones that are usually signified by a different color font.
6)How can anyone say that there are no other universes? Unless one is able to become one with the higher being, become part of the universal flow and ebb, or the transparent eyeball, then no one is to say whether there is another universe. We do not have the technological nor cognitive ability to even comprehend that there is another universe, or even other forms of intelligent life. This is why people turn to religion... because they are somewhat afraid of what lies beyond. I am not attacking religion.
1)then couldn't you say that nothing made God and that God was always here? I am using your approach here Jared. YOu sy that a protozoan was already there.
2)right new species of animals that already existed are being discovered. There are not new life forms. Other Protozoans aren't springing out of the ocean and making fish that turn into birds, that turn into monkey's and then turn into humans. Last time i checked this whole evolution thing was a lot like shape shifting. Which is something that wizards can do. And wizarsd are only in FAIRY TALES !!!. THEY DON'T EXIST
3)so you are telling me that when babies are born the doctor removes gills and wings form the human body? Either you are being sarcastic or you need to go back to first grade because people are not born with gills and wings.
4)if the hydrogen had created the universe then how is it that they were all ready in a universe.
5) you are misinformed. THe elements were fused togethere and did not stay in form for too long. they were created just long enough to be measured. They are basically elemenmts that were altered by becoming fused with another. THis is not the same as taking part of a ball of hydrogen and making more elements. We can't make titanium out of hydrogen.
6)you can't colide two balls of hydrogen to create another uyniverse.
In response to Timmy
1) So you are telling me that an organism ate some hydorgen gas and some carbon and copied itself and reformed the elemets and created the elements? I would pay to see any organism eat an element and rearrange it and dump back into the universe. That is one awseome cirsus act.
2) If it has been going on for years and still is then we should see peolpe walking around that are part ape or part fish.
3)Now you are saying that we had gills before, and they are not nessescary so we don't need them. People go swimming. People that surf all the time don't develop webbed feet. Surfing has been around a while. How come we don't have weebed feet? Yes there are a few people who have two toes that are webbed together but that is a mutation.
4)that is what the theroy says. you might want to research it yourself.
5) the link you gave me goes to an article on nuclear fusion form Wikipedia. The funny thing is that Wikipedia is extremely unreliable and can be edited. Anyone can edit the information and add in what ever they want. You are basing your argument of this topic off of Wikipedia, which is like the online National Enquirer. Next time why don't you just look in the National Examiner and tell me more about this Nuclear Fusion stuff.
6) It is the weekend take it to attempt to formulate an answer.
Finding a rare scientific author such as Carl Sagan can be tough, not many of the contemporary witers have any interest at all in entertaining their reader. I found this reading to be very interesting. I gained a new perspective of our planet...namely one from a few hundred million miles away.
While we as a whole are always trying to delve deeper into the new light slowly reaching earth with projects such as the Hubble telescope or the Keck telescopes in Mauna Lea, Hawaii, but we never stop to think about what we look like from there. What would our planet look like to those in another galaxy that is only a dot on one of the Hubble's exposures? Our galaxy would simply look like another dot on a picture that they examine. When I stop to think about it, we are specks on a speck that revolves around a slightly bigger speck on the edge of a galaxy 100 light years across.
As one speck to all you other specks, i can say that you are all unimportant.well, not really to other little specks, but unfortunately we all are simply the glaze ona blue frosted doughnut, with molten rock filling (yum....). "The going-in assumption is that we are special. After the premise is closely examined though...we are not."
Carl Sagan's new perspective on our small bit of land has really changed my outlook on the universe. On our little pixel we live, breathe, and will live out our lives. It is here on this speck that we live a complete life, looking up into the night sky at perhaps another pale blue dot, staring back at us.
-Scott M.
In response to Alex R.:
I agree with him completely. Are these rocket scientists not smart enough to point a camera back at EARTH from Neptune? Since when did they lose their self infatuation? Also, i think he is right when he said that "we can’t blind ourselves to the fact that it is simply astounding that I exist..." Come to think of it, we are as important in OUR minds as we want to be.
to jared W
1) I never said that the organism was actually there before the time.
2) How do you know that they are not new organisms? Did you scrupulously scour the earth for them? When you do tell me all of you evidence, and then I will show you a bacterial disease that mutates. Oh my dog, that would make a new organism. And yes even though it is a mutation, it usually survives for a long amount of time.
3) No, I am not being sarcastic. Your gills and tail were removed at birth. I also do not believe that the first grade would suit me... I like coloring better than learning how to write poems and such. First grade would suit you though; it's a much higher level of thinking than coloring.
4) I already addressed this point. Learn the facts about the Big Bang.
5) The reason that we can not make titanium out of hydrogen is because they are elements!!! I would also like to mention to you that not all synthetic elements only last a fraction of a second. Ever heard of plutonium? That is a synthetic element and it lasts for more than a second.
6) I never said that I could collide two hydrogen "balls" together to make a new universe. Anyway if I were going to try to make a new universe I wouldn't use two hydrogen "balls" because that's has nothing to do at all with the creation of the universe. That's not the Big Bang Theory.
________________________________
I would also like to point out that your grammar and spelling, and just your basic use of the English language is quite inconsistent. Therefore you say that since Wikipedia is inconsistent and you can not trust a word that it says. I am forced to deduce that I can not even believe a word that you say. Please, do some researches before you issue a rebuttal. You can't discuss anything from any different point of view with a christian. It all has to be about god. It's not worth arguing.
I say, "Good day, sir!!!"
1) Wymer was the one who had questioned who made God. So i took the position to say that question could be used with other beliefs as well. The belief of evolutoin does say that a protozoan had crawled out of the ocaen and started the life we have now. So i took the question Wymer had and asked who made the Protozoan if Evolution happened. I don't care if Timmy claims that it was a little macromolecule that started it. All I want to know is where did it come from? And how do you know that life was started by a protozoan (or in Timmy's special case a macromolecule)? No one was there to record it. There is no way to show that life originated millions of years ago from a molecule or single cell oraganism.
2)No I haven't searched the entire earth. I don't need to. If someone were to find an organism that could transfer into another organism, then into yet another, and so on. The organims would be on the news, it would be the top story on FOX, CNN, whichever you prefer.
Also you said it was a bacterial disease that mutates. I am not sure if you mean the disease casues mutation or if you mena the bacteria mutates. Either way, none of those two cases is an organism turning into another life form.
3)It bogles my mind that you think this is true. Why don't you go to a doctor and ask him the last time he removed any gills wing antlers or a tail from a human baby.
4)The Big Bang is said that there was a small ball of gas that hit another small ball fo gas, and casued a giant explosion. Then there was gravity that pulled some rock formations together into planets, and some people even claim the asteroid belt is part of the proof for the Big Bang. I have heard from many scientists that the gas balls were hydrogen.
What i can't understand is how that is possible. Gas doesn't have a form. That is what makes it gas. It expands in all directions until it fills up a space with equal pressure all around. I would also like to add that the Law of Conservation of Mass disproves the Big Bang Theory. It says that the mass of the reactants is equal to the mass of the products. Well how is it that you explode a small ball of gas with a miniscule mss into a universe with a mass billion and trillions times that of the reactants.
5)Jared what i am saying is that according to the Big Bang there was a gas ball that exploded. And now we have metal, and rock, and liquid, and dirt, and all kinds of other elements and compounds. Then people try to make Gold and the best that we can come up with is brass. The reason being you cna't make elements from other elements.
6)You need to research the Big Bang then becasue it does certainly say that a ball of gas exploded into the universe we have now. The thing I was saying is that if it were true then we would be able to create universes by remerging gasbalss again.
____________________________________
What I was saying about Wikipedia is that people can go and edit the info. You can go to Wikipedia and altar the information so that it fits your personal beliefs. For example i could look up ceramic clay, and edit it so that it would say clay is made of a mixture of doghair, spit, and moose blood. I know it isn't true, but it is now typed in the Wikipedia article and the next person that reads it would believe it. Baiscaqlly Wikipedia is unreliable, becaqsue the info can be altered. I was not commenting on the grammar.
I think we should end the debate of the begining of the universe. I have a strong Christian belief that the universe was created by God, which no one can change. Obviously you, Timmy, and Wymer all haver your own beliefs. I can't change your opinions just as you can't change mine. I am glad i was able to voice my opinion though, and even though I disagree your opinions entirely, it is pointless for me to keep fighting this. You may argue amongst yourselves about the issue if you want but I am no longer contributing to the debate over the begining of the Universe.
Ok beeker, wikipedia is perhaps one of the best online encyclopedia you can use. I read the link and it is credible evidence. Now on behalf of I think the entire physics class, please quit posting random rubbish before you make a fool out of yourself..in which case you already have but hopefully you wont worsen the situation.
Mr. LeGare this will count as my disagree with beeker comment. His posts are loaded with typos, they flood the blog and in most cases, he doesnt know what he is talking about.
k thanks bye
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
totally agree
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
i completely agree, she stole the words right out of my mouth.
Perhaps legare, youcan make a response blog, and then a blog made for stupid comments that create posting wars. If you did that, we could all go to one, post our discussion of the TOPIC AT HAND, and you can read it alml without clutter. The other blog would be purely for entertainment. We probably wouldnt mind mile long posts there.
I think you're full of pooh.
Post a Comment