A World From Dust

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben McFarland
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Chemical Reactions ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Geological History ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Inorganic Matter ◽  
History Of ◽  
Bioelectric Signals ◽  
The Universe

A World From Dust describes how a set of chemical rules combined with the principles of evolution in order to create an environment in which life as we know it could unfold. Beginning with simple mathematics, these predictable rules led to the advent of the planet itself, as well as cells, organs and organelles, ecosystems, and increasingly complex life forms. McFarland provides an accessible discussion of a geological history as well, describing how the inorganic matter on Earth underwent chemical reactions with air and water, allowing for life to emerge from the world's first rocks. He traces the history of life all the way to modern neuroscience, and shows how the bioelectric signals that make up the human brain were formed. Most popular science books on the topic present either the physics of how the universe formed, or the biology of how complex life came about; this book's approach would be novel in that it condenses in an engaging way the chemistry that links the two fields. This book is an accessible and multidisciplinary look at how life on our planet came to be, and how it continues to develop and change even today. This book includes 40 illustrations by Gala Bent, print artist and studio faculty member at Cornish College of the Arts, and Mary Anderson, medical illustrator.

scholarly journals From cosmos to intelligent life: the four ages of astrobiology

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 345-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcelo Gleiser
Keyword(s):  
Chemical Elements ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Big Bang ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
First Stars ◽  
History Of ◽  
Life On Earth ◽  
The Big Bang ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Intelligent Life

AbstractThe history of life on Earth and in other potential life-bearing planetary platforms is deeply linked to the history of the Universe. Since life, as we know, relies on chemical elements forged in dying heavy stars, the Universe needs to be old enough for stars to form and evolve. The current cosmological theory indicates that the Universe is 13.7 ± 0.13 billion years old and that the first stars formed hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang. At least some stars formed with stable planetary systems wherein a set of biochemical reactions leading to life could have taken place. In this paper, I argue that we can divide cosmological history into four ages, from the Big Bang to intelligent life. The physical age describes the origin of the Universe, of matter, of cosmic nucleosynthesis, as well as the formation of the first stars and Galaxies. The chemical age began when heavy stars provided the raw ingredients for life through stellar nucleosynthesis and describes how heavier chemical elements collected in nascent planets and Moons gave rise to prebiotic biomolecules. The biological age describes the origin of early life, its evolution through Darwinian natural selection and the emergence of complex multicellular life forms. Finally, the cognitive age describes how complex life evolved into intelligent life capable of self-awareness and of developing technology through the directed manipulation of energy and materials. I conclude discussing whether we are the rule or the exception.

Writing Cultural History in Early Modern Europe: Christophe Milieu and his Project

1999 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 342-365
Author(s):  
Donald R. Kelley
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Philosophy And Literature ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Comprehensive History

AbstractChristophe Milieu's De Scribenda Vniversitatis rervm historia libri qvinqve (Basel, 1551) interprets the "universe of things" (universitas return) within an evolutionary and historical framework consisting of five connected and progressive "grades" (gradus) of existence accessible to human understanding: nature (natura), the world of God's creation and man's animal aspect; prudence (prudentia), including the arts of survival; government (principatus), the stage of civil society and political history; wisdom (sapientia), equivalent to civilization and including the higher sciences and philosophy; and literature (litetatura), in which knowledge of the preceding phases of "progress" (progressio) is expressed in writing. Milieu's "narrative" constitutes a pioneering and comprehensive history of western culture.

PANSPERMIA: EVIDENCE FROM ASTRONOMY TO METEORITES

2013 ◽  
Vol 28 (14) ◽  
pp. 1330009 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. C. WICKRAMASINGHE ◽  
J. WALLIS ◽  
D. H. WALLIS
Keyword(s):  
Early Stage ◽  
High Redshift ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Spectral Features ◽  
History Of ◽  
External Galaxies ◽  
Interstellar Material ◽  
Cometary Panspermia ◽  
Spectroscopic Signatures ◽  
The Universe

The theory of cometary panspermia is reviewed in relation to evidence from astronomy, biology and recent studies of meteorites. The spectroscopic signatures in interstellar material within our galaxy and in external galaxies that have been known for many years most plausibly represent evidence for the detritus of life existing on a cosmic scale. Such spectral features discovered in galaxies of high redshift points to life arising at a very early stage in the history of the Universe. Evidence of fossils of microscopic life forms in meteorites that have been discussed over several decades, and augmented recently with new data, reaffirms the case for cometary panspermia.

Popular Science, Textbooks, and Scientists: The Periodic Law in Italy

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Ciardi ◽  
Marco Taddia
Keyword(s):  
Popular Science ◽  
Classification Criteria ◽  
Science Textbooks ◽  
Italian Translation ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Periodic Law ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University ◽  
Medicine And The Arts

This essay deals with an issue that has never before been the focus of attention in the field of research on the history of chemistry in Italy: the diffusion of Mendeleev’s periodic system in our nation. In the following text we will analyze the situation in the period preceding the arrival of Mendeleev’s theory in Italy with regard to the matter of classifying elements. By doing so, it will be possible to demonstrate that—despite the superficiality and lack of accuracy of certain studies—Italian chemistry was already very willing to consider new proposals relating to the classification of elements. We will then attempt to illustrate how Mendeleev’s work not only attracted the attention of the most renowned Italian chemists, such as Augusto Piccini and Giacomo Ciamician, but also became widely used in university texts and secondary school textbooks. In order to understand the classification criteria for elements adopted by Italian chemists before Mendeleev and therefore the cultural terrain the law of periodicity was to take root in, it would be better to refer to a number of texts used widely for teaching in universities. We will examine four of these, published between 1819 and 1867. In all these texts, the term “simple bodies” appears, with the expression “simple substances” used less frequently, while Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (1743–94), in his 1789 Traité élémentaire de chimie (Traité thereafter), uses the same term “simple substances” or “simple substances … which may be considered as the elements of bodies.” It is interesting to note that Vincenzo Dandolo’s Italian translation (first edition 1792) uses the expression “sostanze semplici,” interpreting quite literally the Frenchman’s choice of term. Thirty years after publication of the Traité, Antonio Santagata (1774–1858), professor of general chemistry at the Pontificia Università di Bologna, published his Lezioni di chimica elementare [Lessons in elementary chemistry], derived from Lezioni di chimica elementare: applicata alla medicina e alle arti [Lessons in Elementary Chemistry: Applied to Medicine and the Arts] (Bologna, 1804), written by his predecessor in the university chair, Pellegrino Salvigni (1777–1841).

scholarly journals Will recent advances in AI result in a paradigm shift in Astrobiology and SETI?

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joe Gale ◽  
Amri Wandel ◽  
Hugh Hill
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Foreseeable Future ◽  
Computer Performance ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Life On Earth ◽  
Near Future ◽  
Self Learning ◽  
The Universe

AbstractThe steady advances in computer performance and in programming raise the concern that the ability of computers would overtake that of the human brain, an occurrence termed ‘the Singularity’. While comparing the size of the human brain and the advance in computer capacity, the Singularity has been estimated to occur within a few decades although the capacity of conventional computers may reach its limits in the near future. However, in the last few years, there have been rapid advances in artificial intelligence. There are already programs that carry out pattern recognition and self-learning which, at least in limited fields such as chess and other games, are superior to the best human players. Furthermore, the quantum computing revolution, which is expected to vastly increase computer capacities, is already on our doorstep. It now seems inevitable that the Singularity will arrive within the foreseeable future. Biological life, on Earth and on extraterrestrial planets and their satellites, may continue as before, but humanity could be ‘replaced’ by computers. Older and more advanced intelligent life forms, possibly evolved elsewhere in the Universe, may have passed their Singularity a long time ago. Post Singularity life would probably be based not on biochemical reactions but on electronics. Their communication may use effects such as quantum entanglement and be undetectable to us. This may explain the Fermi paradox or at least the ‘Big Silence’ problem in SETI.

Dickens and Astronomy, Biology, and Geology

2018 ◽  
pp. 403-419
Author(s):  
Jonathan Smith
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Critical Position ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Laws Of Thermodynamics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Victorian Science ◽  
The Universe

For the last half-century, in a reversal of a long-standing critical position, Dickens has been regarded as engaged with the science of his day, particularly that associated with the laws of thermodynamics; with theories of the evolution of the universe and of life as promulgated in Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, the nebular hypothesis, and Darwin’s Origin of Species; and with geology and the representation of geological change. This chapter summarizes and assesses the criticism on Dickens’s relationship to science and on the role of science in his periodicals, Household Words and All the Year Round, and in his fiction. It argues that the work of historians of Victorian science in recent decades now enables us to see Dickens as not just interested in science, but immersed in the textual and visual culture of display in Victorian popular science.

REFERENCE POINT OF GEOLOGICAL TIME

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-184
Author(s):  
Gennady Aksenov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Earth Sciences ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
Geological History ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
Biological Time ◽  
Mineral Complex ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of ◽  
Absolute Age ◽  
The Universe

In the earth sciences, there is a persistent contradiction between modern ideas about the age of the planet and the concept of V.I. Vernadsky about the geological eternity of life. According to Vernadsky, the absolute age of the rock indicates only the time of its last metamorphism, but not the age of the Earth. It is no coincidence that the pregeological substance of a cosmic formation of the planet has not been found. Such substance does not exist because any mineral complex and rock begins to form in the hypergenesis zone. Vernadsky argued that geological history was equal in duration to the existence of the biosphere and its duration was measured by biological time. His concept is confirmed by current biogeochemistry. The history of the biosphere practically coincided with the "canonical" age of the Earth. In a cosmological sense, the picture of the universe cannot be built without the concept of the geological eternity of the biosphere.

Introduction: Emotion, History and the Arts

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Sullivan ◽  
Marie Louise Herzfeld-Schild
Keyword(s):  
Historical Change ◽  
Carson Mccullers ◽  
Emotional Life ◽  
Review Section ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
War Correspondents ◽  
History Of ◽  
Johan Huizinga

This introduction surveys the rise of the history of emotions as a field and the role of the arts in such developments. Reflecting on the foundational role of the arts in the early emotion-oriented histories of Johan Huizinga and Jacob Burkhardt, as well as the concerns about methodological impressionism that have sometimes arisen in response to such studies, the introduction considers how intensive engagements with the arts can open up new insights into past emotions while still being historically and theoretically rigorous. Drawing on a wide range of emotionally charged art works from different times and places—including the novels of Carson McCullers and Harriet Beecher-Stowe, the private poetry of neo-Confucian Chinese civil servants, the photojournalism of twentieth-century war correspondents, and music from Igor Stravinsky to the Beatles—the introduction proposes five ways in which art in all its forms contributes to emotional life and consequently to emotional histories: first, by incubating deep emotional experiences that contribute to formations of identity; second, by acting as a place for the expression of private or deviant emotions; third, by functioning as a barometer of wider cultural and attitudinal change; fourth, by serving as an engine of momentous historical change; and fifth, by working as a tool for emotional connection across communities, both within specific time periods but also across them. The introduction finishes by outlining how the special issue's five articles and review section address each of these categories, while also illustrating new methodological possibilities for the field.

Elements for a General Organology

Derrida Today ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-94
Author(s):  
Bernard Stiegler
Keyword(s):  
Organic Matter ◽  
Planetary Scale ◽  
General Account ◽  
Inorganic Matter ◽  
History Of

These lectures outline the project of a general organology, which is to say an account of life when it is no longer just biological but technical, or when it involves not just organic matter but organized inorganic matter. This organology is also shown to require a modified Simondonian account of the shift from vital individuation to a three-stranded process of psychic, collective and technical individuation. Furthermore, such an approach involves extending the Derridean reading of Socrates's discussion of writing as a pharmakon, so that it becomes a more general account of the pharmacological character of retention and protention. By going back to Leroi-Gourhan, we can recognize that this also means pursuing the history of retentional modifications unfolding in the course of the history of what, with Lotka, can also be called exosomatization. It is thus a question of how exteriorization can, today, in an epoch when it becomes digital, and in an epoch that produces vast amounts of entropy at the thermodynamic, biological and noetic levels, still possibly produce new forms of interiorization, that is, new forms of thought, care and desire, amounting to so many chances to struggle against the planetary-scale pharmacological crisis with which we are currently afflicted.

Roshdi Rashed

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 279-295
Author(s):  
Mohammed Aref
Keyword(s):  
Review Essay ◽  
Great Book ◽  
Mathematical Language ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Major Work ◽  
Galileo Galilei ◽  
Elementary Knowledge ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Universe

This review essay introduces the work of the Egyptian scientific historian and philosopher Roshdi Rashed, a pioneer in the field of the history of Arab sciences. The article is based on the five volumes he originally wrote in French and later translated into Arabic, which were published by the Centre for Arab Unity Studies and which are now widely acclaimed as a unique effort to unveil the achievements of Arab scientists. The essay reviews this major work, which seems, like Plato’s Republic to have “No Entry for Those Who Have No Knowledge of Mathematics” written on its gate. If you force your way in, even with elementary knowledge of computation, a philosophy will unfold before your eyes, described by the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei as “written in that great book which ever lies before our eyes—I mean the universe—but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols, in which it is written. This book is written in the mathematical language, and the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without whose help it is impossible to comprehend a single word of it; without which one wanders in vain through a dark labyrinth.” The essay is a journey through this labyrinth where the history of world mathematics got lost and was chronicled by Rashed in five volumes translated from the French into Arabic. It took him fifteen years to complete.

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