The Strata Machine

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Zalasiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Human Activity ◽  
Chicago Tribune ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Future ◽  
Henry Ford ◽  
Tangible Evidence ◽  
History Of ◽  
Inert Mass ◽  
Resource Exhaustion ◽  
The Many

History is bunk—or so Henry Ford is reputed to have said. Folk memory, though, simplifies recorded statements. What Henry Ford actually told the Chicago Tribune was ‘History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only tradition that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history that we make today.’ So folk memory, in this case, did pretty well reflect the kernel of his views. Henry Ford also said that ‘Exercise is bunk. If you are healthy, you don’t need it; if you are sick, you shouldn’t take it.’ Henry Ford was a very powerful, very rich man of strongly expressed views. And he was quite wrong on both counts. Not having known Henry Ford, interplanetary explorers may have their own view of history. As, perhaps, an indispensable means of understanding the present and of predicting the future. As a way of deducing how the various phenomena—physical, chemical, and biological—on any planet operate. And as a means of avoiding the kind of mistake—such as resource exhaustion or intra-species war—that could terminate the ambitions of any promising and newly emerged intelligent life-form. On Earth, and everywhere else, things are as they are because they have developed that way. The history of that development must be worked out from tangible evidence: chiefly the objects and traces of past events and processes preserved on this planet itself. The surface of the Earth is no place to preserve deep history. This is in spite of—and in large part because of—the many events that have taken place on it. The surface of the future Earth, one hundred million years from now, will not have preserved evidence of contemporary human activity. One can be quite categorical about this. Whatever arrangement of oceans and continents, or whatever state of cool or warmth will exist then, the Earth’s surface will have been wiped clean of human traces. For the Earth is active. It is not just an inert mass of rock, an enormous sphere of silicates and metals to be mined by its freight of organisms, much as caterpillars chew through leaves.

scholarly journals 2017Spring PaduaMuscleDays, roots and byproducts

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ugo Carraro
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Special Reference ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many

The second 2017 issue of EJTM volume 27 contains the collection of abstracts from the 2017Spring PaduaMuscleDays conference, that was held March 23-25 in Montegrotto, Euganei Hills, Padova, Italy. In addition to a brief history of the Padova Myology Meetings held during the last 30 years, the present and the future of the PaduaMuscleDays conference are discussed with special reference to new media and the options they offer to spread to a larger audience the results of the many workshops held in the Hotel Augustus conference hall and in the <em>Aula Guariento</em> of the <em>Accademia Galileiana di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti</em>, one of the hidden treasures of the medioeval Padua, Italy. Preliminary announcements of the 2017 and 2018 events, in particular of the Giovanni Salviati Memorial, will follow.

scholarly journals The Role of Observation With Horizontal Meridian Circle in China for Establishing an Inertial Frame

1990 ◽  
Vol 141 ◽  
pp. 142-142
Author(s):  
Li Zhi-gang ◽  
Qi Guan-Rong
Keyword(s):  
Inertial Frame ◽  
Minor Planets ◽  
Meridian Circle ◽  
Horizontal Meridian ◽  
Proper Motions ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Radio Stars

While HIPPARCOS is expected to measure positions and proper motions with more accuracy than those obtained by ground-based instruments, what can we do in the future for ground-based instruments? The observations with them still are important for establishing an inertial frame because of the long history of observations with them and improvements in the instruments. Moreover, it is necessary to have data of observations from them for research on problems related to the Earth. The horizontal meridian circle in China (DCMT) is expected to have advantage over the classical meridian circles. The DCMT will be assembled and tested this year. It should work in the following fields: (1) observing radio stars, (2) observation of minor planets, (3) absolute determinations of IRS.

Feeding a Thousand Souls

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vijaya Nagarajan
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Tamil Nadu ◽  
Rice Flour ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Sanskrit Literature ◽  
Tamil Literature ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of ◽  
Picture Languages ◽  
The Many

Drawing on extensive fieldwork, this book investigates aesthetic, symbolic, metaphorical, literary, mathematical, and philosophical meanings of the kōlam, the popular Tamil women’s daily ephemeral practice, a ritual art tradition performed with rice flour on the thresholds of houses in southern India. They range from concepts such as auspiciousness, inauspiciousness, ritual purity, and ritual pollution. Several divinities, too, play a significant role: Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, good luck, well-being, and a quickening energy; Mūdevi, the goddess of poverty, bad luck, illness, and laziness; Bhūdevi, the goddess of the soils, the earth, and the fields; and the god Ganesh, the remover of obstacles. Braiding art history, aesthetics, and design, this book analyzes the presence of the kōlam in medieval Tamil literature, focusing on the saint-poet Āṇṭāḷ. The author shows that the kōlam embodies mathematical principles such as symmetry, fractals, array grammars, picture languages, and infinity. Three types of kōlam competitions are described. The kinship between Bhūdevi and the kōlam is discussed as the author delves into the topics of “embedded ecologies” and “intermittent sacrality.” The author explores the history of the phrase “feeding a thousand souls,” tracing it back to ancient Sanskrit literature, where it was connected to Indian notions of hospitality, karma, and strangers. Its relationship to the theory of karma is represented by its connection to the five ancient sacrifices. This ritual is distinguished as one of the many “rituals of generosity” in Tamil Nadu.

scholarly journals How does the Earth system generate and maintain thermodynamic disequilibrium and what does it imply for the future of the planet?

2012 ◽  
Vol 370 (1962) ◽  
pp. 1012-1040 ◽  
Author(s):  
Axel Kleidon
Keyword(s):  
Free Energy ◽  
Human Activity ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Net Primary Productivity ◽  
Second Law Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Geochemical Composition ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Future

The Earth's chemical composition far from chemical equilibrium is unique in our Solar System, and this uniqueness has been attributed to the presence of widespread life on the planet. Here, I show how this notion can be quantified using non-equilibrium thermodynamics. Generating and maintaining disequilibrium in a thermodynamic variable requires the extraction of power from another thermodynamic gradient, and the second law of thermodynamics imposes fundamental limits on how much power can be extracted. With this approach and associated limits, I show that the ability of abiotic processes to generate geochemical free energy that can be used to transform the surface–atmosphere environment is strongly limited to less than 1 TW. Photosynthetic life generates more than 200 TW by performing photochemistry, thereby substantiating the notion that a geochemical composition far from equilibrium can be a sign for strong biotic activity. Present-day free energy consumption by human activity in the form of industrial activity and human appropriated net primary productivity is of the order of 50 TW and therefore constitutes a considerable term in the free energy budget of the planet. When aiming to predict the future of the planet, we first note that since global changes are closely related to this consumption of free energy, and the demands for free energy by human activity are anticipated to increase substantially in the future, the central question in the context of predicting future global change is then how human free energy demands can increase sustainably without negatively impacting the ability of the Earth system to generate free energy. This question could be evaluated with climate models, and the potential deficiencies in these models to adequately represent the thermodynamics of the Earth system are discussed. Then, I illustrate the implications of this thermodynamic perspective by discussing the forms of renewable energy and planetary engineering that would enhance the overall free energy generation and, thereby ‘empower’ the future of the planet.

scholarly journals Evaluating the efficiency of large scale transit infrastructure planning in Toronto Ontario: issues of governance

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Enzo Testaguzza
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Public Transit ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Infrastructure Planning ◽  
Original Plan ◽  
Infrastructure Provision ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many

This report analyzes the governance of large scale public transit infrastructure planning in the GTA. To accomplish this goal a comparative case study was carried out of the two most recent large scale public transit infrastructure provision plans in Toronto, the Network 2011 plan, and following iterations; and the Transit City aspects of the Big Move plan and subsequent iterations. Each case study consists of (1) a review of the history of each plan and (2) a review of the efficiency of the many iterations of the original plan within each case study. Through analysis of this data several characteristics of governance were associated with movement towards better and worse iterations from an efficiency perspective. These characteristics were used to inform recommendations regarding the future of transportation governance in the GTA.

Brief History of Infant Nutrition and View to the Future

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 88 (5) ◽  
pp. 1054-1056
Author(s):  
LEWIS A. BARNESS
Keyword(s):  
Infant Nutrition ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many ◽  
Extensive List ◽  
Considerable Support

Thank you for your generous remarks, Dr Eaton. With the extensive list of busy work, it is difficult to see how anything good could have come from my activities. Before accepting the award, I should like to acknowledge some of the many people who have contributed to my attaining this honor. First, I thank the nominating committee of the Academy who must have been sleeping at the time of their decision. I thank my ex-students, co-workers, and stimulators, particularly Frank Oski and Grant Morrow, as well as the late Bill Mellman and Michael Miller, who helped me accomplish the little I accomplished. I've been lucky in wives, both of whom gave considerable support.

scholarly journals Limits to growth: human economy and planetary boundaries

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerryn Higgs
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
Physical Processes ◽  
Limits To Growth ◽  
For Profit ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Almost Everywhere ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Many

The idea of physical limits to human economic systems is advanced by physical scientists and ecological economists, as well as appealing to the common sense proposition that unending growth in physical processes such as material extraction and waste disposal will ultimately be inconsistent with any finite entity, even one as large as the Earth. Yet growth remains the central aim of business and government almost everywhere. This paper examines the history of the idea of economic growth and the many influences and interests that supported – and still support – its enshrinement as the principal aim of human societies. These include the apparatus of propaganda in favour of corporate interests; the emphasis on international trade; the funding of environmental denial; and, underlying all these, the corporate requirement for profit to continue to increase. The dominance of these influences has serious consequences for the natural world while growth has failed to solve the problems of poverty.

JOHN PLAYER'S ‘GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS’ OF 1764–1766, AND HIS CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIETY OF ARTS JOURNAL MUSEUMRUSTICUM ET COMMERCIALE

2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-265
Author(s):  
HUGH TORRENS ◽  
MADELEINE GILL
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Place Names ◽  
Main Interest ◽  
New Science ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many ◽  
Coal Fields

It had been discovered, by 1975, that an eighteenth-century manuscript on English strata written by a John Player had been donated to a museum in Bath, England in 1857. The hunt for this, lost since some time after 1879, led in 1991 to the realization that an earlier MSS version had survived in private hands. This paper is the result of a collaboration between Madeleine Gill, historian and lineal descendant of the Gloucestershire Quaker John Player (1725–1808), Hugh Torrens, an historian of English geology. We first investigate, and publish part of, Player's MSS ‘Observations on the Strata of the Earth’ of 1765/1766. Its content is highly complex, because of the lack of any adequate terminology which would have allowed Player to describe the many lithologies he had encountered, coupled with his failure to give any place names to the localities at which he had found them. The later history of this MSS is next discussed, and how it came to the attention in 1801 of the circle which then surrounded William Smith at nearby Bath. But this was clearly too late to have influenced Smith directly. It was next discovered that Player had also been the author of a series of articles between 1764 and 1766 in the journal Museum Rusticum, which was an early publishing outlet in support of the work of the Society of Arts, founded in London in 1754. Player wrote these articles under the pseudonym of “Ruricola Glocestris”. His first article, which gave “easy-to-be-known signs by which to direct the search for Coal”, gave us a second, printed, source by which we could investigate his early investigations of English strata. It became clear that his main interest was in helping the discovery of unknown deposits of coal, outside the known coal fields, which were fuelling the nascent ‘Industrial Revolution’ here, and which now surrounded Player as he worked, first as a farmer, and later as a significant land surveyor, widely away from his Gloucestershire base. The final parts of our paper discuss the history of the English study of strata. Here we reject Martin Rudwick's claim that this had owed much, or anything, to German geognosy. We support this by pointing out that Player had been preceded by John Strachey, whose earlier work on such strata we also discuss, as we do that of Player's contemporary, John Michell. Finally, we urge the importance of coal, which fuelled the world's first ‘Industrial Revolution’ in Britain, and which historians now point out has provided the ‘key break in the history of humanity’. We hope this paper will inspire others to examine more the effects that coal and its ‘Revolution’ have had on the rise of the new science of geology.

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