scholarly journals Earthrise

2002 ◽  
Vol 124 (05) ◽  
pp. 42-46
Author(s):  
Aloysius I. Reisz

This article focuses on the Apollo program that was a remarkable feat of engineering and a heroic human endeavor. It proved that mankind is not bound to Earth. The Apollo missions endowed us with a new sense of confidence in our intelligence and an awareness of our existence. Above all, the view of the graceful Earth from the moon inspired us to engineer better systems for our home planet. Apollo’s engineering leaders showed how to envision solutions to achieve objectives in a required time. Green engineering is developing clean energy and life systems that conserve Earth’s ecology. Clean energy can be obtained from the first elements of the universe, light and hydrogen. Energy from nuclear fusion leaves no hydrocarbon pollutants. Clean energy is also obtained from wind, celestial heat, biomass, and hydrocarbon matter before heavier Earth elements are entrained. Engineering is the application of human intelligence for the betterment of life. Engineers must not be satisfied with a role of merely making rote calculations. Rather, vision and leadership in developing and implementing new technologies should be provided that will allow perpetual use of the Earth and its resources.

2020 ◽  
pp. 279-298
Author(s):  
Emma Gee

This chapter brings us from Plato to a second-century CE reception of his dialogues, in the work of Plutarch. It concentrates on one dialogue of Plutarch, the De facie in orbe lunae (On the Face in the Moon’s Disc). In the myth that concludes this dialogue, the speaker, Sulla, references Homer’s Elysium from Odyssey 4. But Sulla lifts the Homeric Elysium from “the ends of the earth,” up a level, so that it is situated in the moon. This sets the scene for the rest of Plutarch’s eschatological myth, in which Elysium is repositioned as part of an ascending world-system. Cosmos in Plutarch is the theater for soul. Soul and cosmos in Plutarch are bound up in a sequence of functional interrelationships. Plutarch’s tripartite cosmos functions like the human entity and in fact is the physical area of operation in the life and death of the human entity. There is a truly intertwined relationship between the tripartite human entity and the tripartite cosmos: a three-stage cosmos gives a three-stage cycle of death to life and back, from the sun to the moon to the earth, over and over again. Plutarch’s whole cosmos takes on the role of an afterlife landscape. The De facie gives us the clearest instance we’ve yet seen of the phenomenon of psychic harmonization, in which the soul is entirely integrated with the universe.


Designs ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Pyrrhon Amathes ◽  
Paul Christodoulides

Photography can be used for pleasure and art but can also be used in many disciplines of science, because it captures the details of the moment and can serve as a proving tool due to the information it preserves. During the period of the Apollo program (1969 to 1972), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) successfully landed humans on the Moon and showed hundreds of photos to the world presenting the travel and landings. This paper uses computer simulations and geometry to examine the authenticity of one such photo, namely Apollo 17 photo GPN-2000-00113. In addition, a novel approach is employed by creating an experimental scene to illustrate details and provide measurements. The crucial factors on which the geometrical analysis relies are locked in the photograph and are: (a) the apparent position of the Earth relative to the illustrated flag and (b) the point to which the shadow of the astronaut taking the photo reaches, in relation to the flagpole. The analysis and experimental data show geometrical and time mismatches, proving that the photo is a composite.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 80-87
Author(s):  
Toji Omonovich Norov ◽  

The universe, the space that make up their basis planets in it, their creation, the main essence of their creation, form, composition, meaning, movements, interactions, their influence on human life and activities, the role of man in the universe and in life on Earth, life, the criteria of activity and processes occurring in time and space have long been of interest to humanity. One of the main problems in the history of philosophy is the question of space and time. This problem was defined in different ways in the great schools of thought by thinkers of different periods. One of these great thinkers is Alisher Navoi. Navoi's works, along with other socio-philosophical themes, uniquely express and analyze the problems of the firmament and time. Its main feature is that it is based on the divine (pantheistic) religion, Islam, its holy book, the Koran and other theological sources, as well as on the secrets of nature and the Universe, the main miracle of Allah - human intelligence, the power of enlightenment, they are the key revealing all these secrets.


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-19
Author(s):  
Marcello De Martino

The Pythagorean Philolaus of Croton (470-390 BCE) created a unique model of the Universe and he placed at its centre a ‘fire’, around which the spheres of the Earth, the Counter-Earth, the five planets, the Sun, the Moon and the outermost sphere of fixed stars, also viewed as fire but of an ‘aethereal’ kind, were revolving. This system has been considered as a step towards the heliocentric model of Aristarchus of Samos (310-230 BCE), the astronomical theory opposed to the geocentric system, which already was the communis opinio at that time and would be so for many centuries to come: but is that really so? In fact, comparing the Greek data with those of other ancient peoples of Indo-European language, it can be assumed that the ‘pyrocentric’ system is the last embodiment of a theological tradition going back to ancient times: Hestia, the central fire, was the descendant of an Indo-European goddess of Hearth placed at the centre of the religious and mythological view of a deified Cosmos where the gods were essentially personifications of atmospheric phenomena and of celestial bodies.


2021 ◽  
pp. 11-21
Author(s):  
Michela Graziani ◽  
Lapo Casetti ◽  
Salomé Vuelta García

This miscellaneous volume aims to commemorate the Iberian and European celebrations about Magellan that started in 2019. Specifically, the volume commemorates: the person and the image of Magellan on earth (celebrating the 500 years of his circumnavigation of the Earth) and in the universe (remembering the two Magellanic clouds); the Eddington’s journey and the Apollo XI flight to the moon, through many essays that investigate the concept of travel in its several attitudes (explorative, scientific, philosophical, introspective, literary) in Sciences and Humanities, from ancient to contemporary ages, in an intercultural perspective, following a thematic scheme and a cronological one as well, if it is possible.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
Wasudewa Bhattacarya

<p><em>The spread of Hinduism from India to Indonesia is the result of acculturation of culture which then brought the concepts of Astronomy-Astrology in </em><em>Jyotiṣa </em><em>to Indonesia and Bali. Arriving in Bali, the concept of Astronomy-Astrology is known as Wariga. Wariga’s existence gave rise to holy days in the implementation of Yajña. One of them is the holy day of Purnama-Tilem. The determination of this holy day is based on the appearance of the moon from the earth as a repetitive cycle. If the moon appears perfectly round from the earth, it is called Purnama (Full Moon), whereas if the moon is not visible from the earth it is called Tilem (Dark Moon). This shows that there are two very basic differences in  determining Purnama  and  Tilem.  Dualistic this difference in Hinduism is called Rwa Bhinneda. Rwa Binneda is a polarization of life that speaks of all forms of dualism such as, top down, right left, dark light, and so on. Based on manuscipts in Bali, the existence of Purnama and Tilem shows a dualism in Hindu Theology called Sanghyang Rwa Bhinneda there  are Sanghyang Wulan and Sanghyang Surya at the level of </em><em>Saguṇa </em><em>Brahman. The dualism of the difference between Purnama and Tilem also influences Bhuwana Agung and Bhuwana Alit. The difference in the meaning of Purnama and Tilem is not something bad, but through this difference will bring about a balance between God, humans and the universe so that all beings will be able to reach the Moksartham Jagadhita ya ca iti Dharma.</em><em></em></p><p><strong><em><br /></em></strong><em></em><em></em></p>


Author(s):  
Hermann S. Schibli

The Greek philosopher Philolaus of Croton, a contemporary of Democritus and Socrates, was a pre-eminent Pythagorean. His book counts as the first written treatise in the history of Pythagoreanism. Surviving in fragments, it constitutes an important source for our knowledge of fifth-century Pythagoreanism and supplements the picture given by Aristotle of Pythagorean doctrine. Like earlier Presocratics Philolaus sought to furnish a comprehensive cosmology. Arguing from logical propositions, he posited two pre-existing principles: ‘unlimited things’ and ‘limiting things’. United by harmony these two principles account for the formation of the cosmos and its phenomena. Since Philolaus also invokes number as an all-powerful explanatory concept, it is likely that he associated his first principles and the things originating from them with numbers. The emphasis on harmony and number accords with early Pythagoreanism. Philolaus also wrote on musical theory and astronomy. A noteworthy feature of his astronomy is the displacement of the earth from the centre of the cosmos by fire, pictured as the ‘hearth’ of the universe. The fragments further attest Philolaus’ interest in embryology, the causes of diseases, and physiology combined with psychological functions. It was not unusual for early Greek philosophers to treat such a wide variety of topics. The distinctive elements of the thought of Philolaus are the logical arguments evinced in the fragments and the epistemological role of number for understanding the structure of reality.


1998 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 985-987
Author(s):  
L. I. Gurvits

Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) technique occupies a special place among tools for studying the Universe due to its record high angular resolution. The latter is in the inverse proportion to the length of interferometer baseline at any given wavelength. Until recently, the available angular resolution in radio domain of about 1 milliarcsecond at centimeter wavelengths was limited by the diameter of the Earth. However, many astrophysical problems require a higher angular resolution. The only way to achieve this at a given wavelength is to create an interferometer with the baseline larger than the Earth’s diameter by placing at least one telescope in space. In February 1997, the first dedicated Space VLBI mission, VLBI Space Observatory Program (VSOP), led by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Sciences (Japan) has been launched (Hirabayashi 1997). The VSOP mission opens a new dimension in the development of radio astronomy of extremely high angular resolution and will be followed by other Space VLBI missions. A review of scientific drives and technological challenges of the next generation Space VLBI mission have been discussed, for example, by Gurvits et al. (1996) and Ulvestad et al. (1997).


2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (S240) ◽  
pp. 670-677
Author(s):  
Michal Křížek ◽  
Alena Šolcová

AbstractIn 1905, Henri Poincaré predicted the existence of gravitational waves and assumed their speed equal to the speed of light. If additionally the gravitational aberration would have the same magnitude as the aberration of light, we would observe several paradoxical phenomena. For instance, the orbit of two bodies would be unstable, since two attractive forces arise that are not in line and hence form a couple. This will be modelled by a nonautonomous system of ordinary differential equations with delay. In fact, any positive value of the gravitational aberration increases the angular momentum of such a system and this may contribute to the expansion of the universe. We found a remarkable coincidence between the Hubble constant and the increasing distance of the Moon from the Earth.In 2000, Carlip showed that in general relativity gravitational aberration is almost cancelled out by velocity–dependent interactions. We show how the actual value of the gravitational aberration can be obtained by measurement of a single angle at a suitable time t* corresponding to the perihelion of an elliptic orbit. We also derive an a priori error estimate that expresses how accurately t* has to be determined to obtain the gravitational aberration to a prescribed tolerance.


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