It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Nope, it’s just meteor 2012 DA14!

*Iowa State Daily column by Ian Timberlake*

June 30, 1908, was a rather eventful day in an otherwise uneventful forest in Siberia, Russia, when a meteor nearly a football field in size exploded only a few miles above Earth’s surface.

The “Tunguska event” went almost completely unnoticed thanks to its isolation from the rest of the world, even though it impacted Earth with an energy level equivalent to roughly 15 megatons of TNT —or 1,000 times as powerful as the thermonuclear detonation over Hiroshima, Japan.

The Tunguska meteor leveled more than 830 square miles and would have measured more than 5.0 on the richter scale — and was almost identical in characteristics to the asteroid passing a record close proximity to us today, Feb. 15th, named “2012 DA14”.

Asteroid 2012 DA14 is a little less than a football field in diameter and weighs an estimated 130,000 tons. It will pass within geosynchronous orbit at an altitude of about 3.5 Earth radii — 5,000 less than the satellites — and will be traveling 18,000 miles per hour, more than 23 times the speed of sound.

If this asteroid were to enter our atmosphere and become a meteor, it would be almost laughable for me to say it would be a bad day.

Have no worries, though, there is zero chance for 2012 DA14 to hit us, even on any return trip within the next 100 years.

As NASA Jet Propulsion Lab’s newest volunteer ambassador for Iowa, I will regularly make an effort keep you up to date on the latest information and research to come out of NASA. Clarified in the paper, any opinion I hold is independent to that of NASA.

With that said, it is unlikely you will be able to see the asteroid with the naked eye. If you wish to see it, it will require a mounted pair of binoculars positioned to catch the asteroid traveling from the southern evening sky to northern morning sky at about 1:24 p.m. The asteroid can be viewed via live feed from one of NASA’s telescopes at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ustream.html

2012 DA14 was discovered by the LaSagra observatory in southern Spain on Feb. 23, 2012. This is almost exactly one year before the asteroid’s passing. Suppose it was calculated to be an impact like the one in Tunguska Forest.

Is one year enough time to prepare if 2012 DA14 were on an orbital path destined to impact us?

An asteroid this size is not big enough to decimate our large region of the world, but it is big enough to decimate a metropolitan area. Even though an asteroid is far more likely to impact water than land, let alone a highly populated area, things like this would need to be considered. Would it be feasible to organize a team to send out a spacecraft to intercept and divert said asteroid? Or would it be better to calculate its impact region and evacuate anyone within the effective impact radius?

If the asteroid were anything like 2012 XE54, discovered Dec. 9, 2012 — two days before passing Earth within the moon’s orbit — then there isn’t much we could do but evacuate as many as possible and tell the world to hunker down. Even though 2012 XE54 was not big enough to do considerable damage if it hit us, it still shows the owl-like stealth of these rocks and how well they fly under the radar.

As far as I can discern, a future asteroid impact is the only natural disaster humans have the capability to avert. It’s also the only known natural disaster capable of wiping us out just as it did the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

NASA and other private corporations should be well-funded such that scanning the local galaxy becomes simplistic and proficient enough to spot lethal asteroids well before they spot us, and possibly already have tested and proven asteroid diverting technology.

Quoted more than once in my columns, Aldous Huxley said, “That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.” The sad reality is that it takes a massive disaster to occur for us to do anything about it on the come around, and even then we are lax. Let us consider the implications of said near-misses and start appropriating resources toward a solution.

Related articles

• What Would Happen if Asteroid 2012 DA14 Hit Earth? (livescience.com)

Spectacular 40 Year “Blue Marble” Anniversary Video

This is a spectacular video put together by people involved with the space program, past and present. It focuses on the implications Earth has had on humanity just by simply seeing it from above, and not within. Take the short time out of your day to watch this video and please pass it on.

We are not alone in the universe

*Iowa State Daily column by Ian Timberlake*

The anatomical Homo sapiens has been walking Earth for nearly a quarter of a million years. On a 24-hour clock we came about roughly at 23:58:43 in comparison to the age of Earth. Not until 500 B.C. did Pythagoras claim that Earth was not flat and nearly 1,000 years later, 450 years ago, the telescope was invented. I was alive when America’s first optical telescope, Hubble, was sent into space. To say we know much about what lies within the confines of our universe is to be dense.

I have always found it intriguing that humans have maintained a highly egocentric view of ourselves. Always convinced that the greatest city lay at the “center of Earth.” Always convinced that the sun and planets revolved around us. Always convinced that we were at the center of all stars in the galaxy. Always convinced that we had someone watching over our particular planet, our particular species, and that we were the only living organisms, let alone “intellectuals,” in the universe.

How humbling it is to lay on a grassy hilltop staring into a deep, dark sky, knowing that we are one of a handful of minor planets revolving around an average star, one of the over quarter trillion (with a “T”) estimated stars in the Milky Way with likely more than that in planets.

While knowing that there are roughly the same number of galaxies in the universe as there are stars in the Milky Way, how can one remotely claim to believe that Earth is the only harbinger of life? I haven’t even begun to talk about the age of the universe.

It is because of the Hubble Space Telescope that we know the universe to be 13.72 billion years old, humans existing with telescopes for 3.28 millionths of a percent of that existence. Countless stars and planets have been born and died off before Earth was even formed, all with the potential chance to hold the conditions for life to arise.

The odds are ever stacked in favor for life to exist elsewhere in the universe. With a symbolically infinite number of places for life to arise and do so in less than a billion years (in Earth’s example) — there can only be one answer as far as I am concerned.

We are not alone.

Chemically, there really isn’t anything special about us. We are made of water and carbon mostly. Hydrogen, oxygen and carbon are among the most abundant elements in the universe — carbon having more combinations than any other element combined. Ranking order of abundance of elements in the universe to that of humans, you find they match up perfectly, all elements having been forged in the creation and destruction of stars.

“We are star stuff,” as the late and great Carl Sagan put it.

If you are not familiar with the Hubble photo called “Ultra Deep Field,” I highly recommend you look it up. This was a photo taken by Hubble after we pointed it in a very dark area of the sky for a long time. The result was nearly 10,000 individual galaxies and only a handful of lone stars in the foreground. If you were to hold the hole of a threading needle up into the night sky, everything that falls within “Ultra Deep Field” fits inside that eye of the needle.

Here’s the catch. We know that it takes time for light to travel a distance, and we know how far away those galaxies are (13 billion light years), which means we are essentially looking back in time to galaxies and stars that don’t exist anymore. At any point in time, one of the solar systems within one of those galaxies could have held the right conditions for life to rise. These systems, having long been destroyed, could have been replaced with new systems with completely new conditions to bear chance for life to grab hold.

Extraterrestrial life in the universe is inevitable with these sorts of odds.

Do I believe we have been visited by aliens? No. In a follow-up column I will talk about what I believe to be the implications of such an encounter.

 

Weather and the Boulevard of Annihilation

*Iowa State Daily column by me*

“You think it’s hot here?” were the words I recently read on a church sign here in Ames. When the church makes light of the heat in relation to hell, then you know the sun is blazing, and the pavement is searing. Medians on Lincoln Way literally buckled out of the ground, students frolicked through the sprinklers in front of the library, and multiple people were admitted into Mary Greeley for heat exhaustion.

As of the end of June, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its data concerning the first six months of 2012. In the 48 contiguous states, the 2012 year-to-date weather statistics show the highest recorded heat in the more than 100 years the United States has recorded temperature. The administration’s statistics also showed the last 12 months were the hottest in recorded history. June was the 14th warmest on record, April was the third warmest on record, May was the second hottest, and March was the hottest in recorded history. All the while, the summer of 2011 was the second warmest ever, and the past winter was the fourth warmest. Of the top 10 warmest 12-month periods since 1895, four of them have occurred since April 2011; and all of the top 10 are from no earlier than fall of 1999.

Percentage are of Contiguous US with top 10% extremes, Jan-Jun

Departure of Temperature From Average, Contiguous US, 5 Warmest Years

 According to the National Climatic Data Center, the odds of this warmth occurring randomly since 1895 without a change in climate is one in 1,594,323. This means it won’t be until 124,652 A.D. that we should see another 12 month period as warm. There is some discrepancy with these odds according to different meteorologists; the lowest I have read was one in a few hundred thousand. Regardless of what the data center or other meteorologists say the odds are, this sort of weather is not supposed to be normal.

A topic of great debate in the last two or three decades is global warming. The topic has even switched sides of the aisle during that time (which is humorous in its own). The debate of whether or not it is happening no longer exists. Earth’s temperature is rising. The numbers bolster the observations. I recently spoke with a man who grew up on the border of Kenya and Tanzania, not too far from Mount Kilimanjaro. He said that when he was a child, he would stand in his yard and see the mountain completely covered with glacier and snow. Now there is hardly a snow cap. It wasn’t until this man came to America and heard the global warming debate he became convinced that was the cause. This is just one at-home example of receding glaciers and melting snow packs.

As the late Christopher Hitchens once said: “The argument about global warming is not whether there is any warming but whether or not and to what extent human activity is responsible for it. My line on that is that we should act as if it is.” This is exactly the position I feel everyone should take, regardless of your stance on the issue. He went on to powerfully state, “We don’t have another planet on which to run the experiment,” which is blatantly true. Is our ego as a species so high as to assume we are correct in our predictions, that if unappreciated, could potentially turn Earth into another Venus? Hopefully the answer is “no.”

You have undoubtedly heard some of the implications of a runaway greenhouse effect: rising sea levels, shrinking ice caps, ocean current neutrality, extreme weather and increased solar radiation, to name a few. Once it becomes “runaway,” things get scary: oxygen depletion, acidification of water and total collapse of the ecosystem.

These scenarios all seem far and gone impossible. But this is exactly what would happen experimentally if Earth lost its climate balance. Most climatologists and astronomers believe Venus is a direct example of this. What would it say about us as humanity if we let this happen?

Dan Gilbert, professor of psychology at Harvard, said in a TED talk: “If we’re not here in 10,000 years, it’s going to be because we could not take advantage of the gift given to us — because we underestimated the odds of our future pains and overestimated the value of our present pleasures.” It would say we are arrogant and inept. Do you want to be outlived by the dinosaurs 1,800 times? Let alone the cockroaches. A little shame and humility can go a long way.

It’s not about whether we are correct or not, it’s about the implications of correctness. If we are incorrect about the literal and figurative mountains of evidence then all we do is blush our cheeks and learn and nothing abominable happens. But if the evidence proves to be kosher and we fail to keep ourselves honest, then the detour to the boulevard of annihilation will be lifted, and that’s a road we don’t want to give ourselves the opportunity to cruise.

Iowa State Daily article by me: http://www.iowastatedaily.com/opinion/article_279015be-d043-11e1-9159-001a4bcf887a.html

Sources:

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2149

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/2012/6/supplemental/page-5

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/cei/graph/cei/ytd

NASA SDO Ultra-High Definition Video of 2012 Venus Eclipse

This is one of the most thought provoking videos I have seen as a result of NASA and the Venus transit. Just being able to see and visualize this event in such detail, considering the enormity of all the numbers involved is truly inspiring. Have a watch if you haven’t seen this already.

Life Is Fragile: Carl Sagan, Christopher Hitchens, & Neil deGrasse Tyson

9 minutes to hear from 3 greats… Carl Sagan, Christopher Hitchens and Neil deGrasse Tyson. If this doesn’t inspire and tickle your mind, I don’t know what will. Life is fragile.

7 Billion People and Counting; Is The World Too Top-Heavy?

As of Monday, October 31st, the United Nations officially made its proclamation that Earth now contains 7 billion people. Now, let’s be real first before delving into the article, this number is based on a percent error of 2% because there is no way to accurately know the exact number of people in the world. So theoretically we could be off by as much as 60 million. But that is beside the point, if we haven’t hit the exact number yet, we’ll hit it in a month or so.

The real issue at hand is how this will impact the world and whether or not we have become too top-heavy to support ourselves. Obviously 7,000,000,000 is no different from 6,900,000,000 from about a year ago… but the mark of 7 billion people warrants a look into our population growth. For the most part, Earth’s human population remained constant for tens of thousands of years. At year 1 we were at a population of about 200 million people. 1,800 years later we hit 1 billion people. So it took 1,800 years for our population to grow 800 million people. Nowadays , it takes about 5 years to do the same thing! From the year 1800 until now, we have gone from 1 billion to 7 billion people and it doesn’t look like the rate is slowing one bit.

Human Population Growth

What is it that pushed the snowball down the slope? It had to be something around 400 years ago because population was largely constant up until that point. I’ll tell you what happened. Around the year 1620, Sir Francis Bacon published Novum Organum (New Method), which was what he believed should be the new method of understanding, knowledge, and science, that would replace the, then, 1700 year old Aristotle Method. If you notice on the growth chart presented above, you will see that right around the time his new method came about was the same time the population began its rather significant incline. Right around this time was also the first real great progression of science and medicine (largely in part to his new scientific method that is still used today). Though, rudimentary by today’s standards, the 17th century was just past the end of the dark ages and many new and great things were turning around… let me just list a few: The first refracting and reflecting telescope was invented, the slide-rule was invented, blood transfusions came about, steam turbine was invented, micrometer is invented, barometer is invented, first calculating machine invented, the first bacteria under a microscope were seen and described, among other things.

Sir Francis Bacon

Not only were these inventions massively triumphant in the science world but also around this time, travel and global communication was becoming more consistent. The world was being mapped and all corners of the globe were being traveled to on a regular basis. Knowledge was being exchanged, obviously significantly slower than today, but it was still consistent. All of this is what led to the dawn of the industrial revolution of all the major nations in the world… and when that happened, there was no stopping human growth. Those who normally would die in the world, were living. And those who normally weren’t able to support their family were now able to easily trade desired commodities.

This is all fine and dandy right? Not really. The reason is our expansion has grown past the point of our rate of developing new and better technologies. The lead-acid battery is [for the most part] the only way we store a charge and it has remained unchanged for 150 years. Other than nuclear, burning coal and gas has been around for longer, and we still primarily rely on coal for power. Whether you like it or not, these methods of energy consumption are not long-term solutions and the question we begin to ask ourselves is where will our population exceed Earth’s capable output? Don’t just say that we’ll soon develop technology to overcome it. You can’t predict the future, that’s a very dangerous thing to do because you don’t know if and when that technology will come about and you don’t know if and when the population will stop growing. And by the looks of it, it’s not going to anytime soon. In just 10 years we’re expected to be at 8 billion and in less than 20 we’re expected to be at 9 billion. This can’t go on forever.

Now for the real brain buster. What if we cure HIV/Aids, as well as cancer? Millions of people who would otherwise be dying would now be living, and those people you would now have to support as well. There’s only so much land to farm, so much coal and oil to mine, so much minerals to extract, only a certain rate at which to harvest trees. Don’t liken me for some leftist hippy because that is NOT what I am. What I am saying is that it is irrefutable that the current method of resource extraction and consumption will most definitely not support humans at the rate at which we are expanding, and that doesn’t even include the people who could be saved from a possible STD and cancer cure.

Am I saying we shouldn’t care about finding these cures or improving technology to the point that everyone on the planet has a fighting chance at a quality life? Not at all, we just need to make sure we improve our technology in other areas that make it easier to support such a population growth and to do it efficiently. Hopefully this will get you to think about how you consume, and what things are important in this world. I didn’t go into possible solutions for this problem, but I plan to at a later time.

Feel free to share or leave comment on what you think, there’s also a “contact” link above if you wish to talk to me directly.

 

Sources:

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/world/united-nations-reports-7-billion-humans-but-others-dont-count-on-it.html

Related articles

• 7 billion people in the world: past, present and future (flowingdata.com)
• 7 Billion People: What Number Are You? (tvnooz.com)
• 7 Billion People (greenlifegirl.wordpress.com)
• What Does 7 Billion People Mean? There’s An App For That (mashable.com)
• 7 Billion People (maboulette.wordpress.com)

25+1 Words of Advice: From a Realist

Here are some words of advice, most by me, some by profound people… remember, take everything with a grain of salt. You, are you.

 

1. What you don’t want is just as important as what you do want. 

Sometimes distinguishing what you don’t want or need in your life is what vectors you towards what you do want. Removing the bad makes room for the good. Once you can make this identification you will no longer feel like you’re being pulled in multiple directions and instead you will be pushed in the one direction you desire most.

2. Knowing what you don’t know is better than knowing what you know.

Because knowing what you don’t know means you know what is left to be explored, as well as improved. At the same time, it’s not all about what you don’t know… it’s about what you know that others don’t. Essentially it means you are aware of your potential and you can emanate that potential onto others.

3. The best revenge of all is happiness… no better way to stick it to someone.

There’s no need to fuss over someone who has harmed you. It’s not good physically or emotionally and only makes you feel like you’re always dragging a sack of bricks. The best way to spite someone is to move on and be happy, because in the end you will be in a better place than that person and they will know it.

4. If life were easy, then what would be challenging? If nothing were challenging, then what would be fun?

No brainer, if you don’t challenge yourself… how will you grow? It’s human nature to grow and improve which is why life always seems so dang hard. An easy life is a boring one.

5. It is because we die that makes life unimaginably worth living.

Death is the most important thing in life, which sounds morbid. But it’s because you have a limited time on Earth that you create value on yourself and loved ones. Once you understand this, the whole world will open up to you like never before. Here is an in-depth article on this topic alone.

6. If it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. 

This coincides with a couple of the others on the list, don’t fret over the things in life that aren’t worth fretting about.

7. Life may be unfair, but the alternative is unacceptable.

No matter how down you get, no matter how lonely you feel, no matter where you find yourself in life, you will ALWAYS have your place and time on Earth. Don’t take away the single most important gift you’ve been given. Even though it may seem like the hole you’re in is as slick as silicone, there is always that something or someone just around the corner that will help you out… you just don’t know it yet.

8. If you want to look into your future, you must look into your past. If you don’t like your past, you must change your present.

Kicking and stomping over previous times does no good. The book thus far has been written and all you can do is write it, so write it.

9. …at the same time, if you keep hoping towards the future, eventually, all you will see is an undesirable past.

Waiting for your life to turn around is like waiting for a plane at a train station, the plane just won’t come. You must go to the plane to get on it. If you wait too long, all you will see is no plane.

10. People are interested in interest, exude interest. 

People like it when others are interested, we are naturally curious. If you exude interest into many facets of your life people will flock to you and give their support.

11. Time is the currency of life, it is the one thing that everyone has equally.

It doesn’t matter where you live, how much money you have, what your religion is, what school you went to, how many “friends” you have, how authoritative you are, every single person that is born on this planet has the time they are given… do something with it, because in the end it’s all you’ve got.

12. Just because you have already “ante’d up”, doesn’t mean you have to play the hand. 

This might be a little harder to understand. Some people feel like they need to pursue something simply because that’s what they’ve been doing. Just because you have chips on the table doesn’t mean you should put more chips on the table because you already have chips on the table. Know when to leave something behind.

13. Live simply and follow your own path. 

Simplicity is efficiency. No need to create complexity in your life, all that does is create stress. The first step in living simply is to only make decisions based off what YOU want to do, not what you think others want you to do.

14. Get in touch with your wild side, yielding is only for the weak. 

Every time you yield it’s because you doubted yourself. What does it mean to doubt yourself? Insecurity. Be deliberate and confident and liberate yourself from what other people think.

15. Live saintly… be a leader in simultaneity to a follower. 

You can’t be a good leader without being a good follower. You must learn as well as lead. If you can master this you will be among the few humble and wise.

16. Many fear failure, and then they don’t commit… trial by fire is the only way to find and perfect what you desire. Always jump head first.

The quickest way to learn is to throw yourself in the flames. Failure is the only way humans can learn… sooner or later enough failure leads you to your ideal, but you will never reach your ideal if you never commit and are afraid of failure.

17. Love is NOT all you need, but it sure is a hell of a lot of what you do need.

There are many things important in life, and not all of them are about love… but love is what fuels us to do great things, and without it you seriously are handicapping yourself. Don’t rotate your whole world around love because it will eventually find you unexpectedly.

18. The instant a new experience arises, take it at all costs. 

All you have are your experiences. It’s how we learn and how we create memories. In our final days all we will have is our memories and our ability to pass on what we’ve learned. A missed opportunity is a missed memory as well a lost place you would otherwise grow.

19. The two most important days in your life are the day you are born, and the day you find out why.

Not every single person is united with the same purpose, everybody has their own purpose. Once you know your purpose, you’ll know who you are, and once you know who you are, nothing else in the world matters. The gift of life is beyond measure speechless, use it to give yourself a purpose… yourself.

20. Question the world around you, ask “why” whenever possible. 

The more you question the world, the more you learn about it and the more you understand what is important. It also allows you to filter out the good and the bad, the correct and the incorrect as well as the ignorant vs the logical. The smartest people in the world were “why” thinkers. Don’t stop doubting and asking.

21. If you don’t have enemies in the world, it means you have never stood up for anything worth while. 

There is a reason a utopian society is impossible, too many people have a different idea of what an ideal world might be… this is why we never will have peace (read more about it here). You can’t always agree with everyone, so if you have enemies, it means you are unique. Uniqueness is important, it shows you’re not boring and that you believe in very specific things… things that are responsible for shifting the ebb and flow of society.

22. Every year go somewhere and do something you have never done before. 

This goes along with #18, experience. Your world will open up to a whole new level for ever new place you go. Don’t worry about the costs, or what you have to sacrifice to do it, it’s your life, live it the way you want to.

23. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. 

Life always has a funny way of working out. If something doesn’t work out the way you wanted it to, it means that it didn’t work for you… even if you were predisposed to think otherwise. Closing the doors of lost causes allows other doors to open, usually unexpectedly and for the better.

24. Don’t be a little bitch. 

Seriously, nobody likes that. Quit your whining, develop a tough shell that doesn’t give a rat’s ass about what other people think. You are above the people who try to pull you down, stay above them.

25. Breath

If life blindsided you in the throat, take a step back, sit down and breath! Relax. Give yourself some space and time to make proper, rational, decisions. Don’t choke yourself.

Bonus. Take everything with a grain of salt. 

What do pretty much all 25 of these things have in common? They all have to do with living your life the way you want to live it. What other people say or do isn’t the be-all-end-all of the world, forge your own sword. And yes, this includes everything I have written.

Drop a comment or share below if you like.

Related articles

• 7 Little Things That Make Life Effortless (zenhabits.net)
• 5 Great Questions to Ask Yourself After a Failure (nechamsblog2.wordpress.com)
• The Art of Learning (thinksimplenow.com)
• The importance of time and knowing oneself (thelittleknown.wordpress.com)
• A Meaningful Life? (areopagusforum.wordpress.com)

Does Your Lack of Experience Limit Your Understanding and Knowledge?

If I were to ask you to describe the color red to somebody who only sees in black and white, how might you do that? Lets say this person, from the time they were born, only saw the world on a gray-scale and had never experienced true color. Could you say red is the color of a rose? Or could you say that red is of a such-n-such wavelength in the light spectrum? Give me something in the comment box if you can think of a method and I’ll give you some serious props. I’ll make it a little easier. What if you had a person who viewed everything as gray-scale, but, they saw anything that was blue. This would give them perception of what the possibilities of “color” are… but do you still think that you could explain to them what red is? Even if they have the perception of what color is?

Humans only learn and understand by comparing their experiences with other worldly observations. How would you explain “hot” to someone who has never felt temperature difference? It’s impossible. If you want to know where I’m going with this, trust me, it’s going somewhere. Not only do I find the above highly intriguing but it’s also meaningful in our lives to understand this.

Your understanding is limited to your experiences.

 

Now. What if I were to ask you about time… or more specifically your perception of it. To you, and everyone else in this world, everything has a beginning and an ending. Everything. Time dictates this. A pepper shaker has a beginning and an ending, a vehicle has a beginning and ending, an earthly creature has a beginning and an ending. From the time you are born, to the time you die (beginning and ending), all your experiences are based around this. Einstein has provided mathematical representations of how time can fluctuate… and it has been proven. Two atomic clocks were monitored, one on the space shuttle and one on Earth. Atomic clocks are accurate to the second in no less than 138 million years. After only a short while in space, the space clock slowed down considerably… proving Einsteins calculations of time fluctuation as you increase your speed.

If time can fluctuate, then what is to say that it can’t be infinite all together? Who says the universe has to have a beginning? The “big bang” as creationists have coined it, did in fact happen, guaranteed… what we don’t know is what was before the explosion. My theory (as well as many other physicists) is that the universe is in a timeless state of expansion and contraction, and in-fact there were many “big bangs”… infinitely many.

Why is this hard to accept? It’s because all we know is time that has a beginning and an ending. We have nothing in our lives to relate timelessness to. How do you explain timelessness? It is literally beyond understanding. You know what it entails, but you can’t explain it. This means that the theory can’t be taken as absurd because there is nothing to say it is not possible, not even improbable. I actually argue it is the most likely. The “big bang” explains the creation of our universe but it doesn’t explain what was before the beginning. It is the eternal question of humanity, one we will probably never answer. But logically, it’s impossible to have nothing before something. So when a creationist argues that the “big bang” states you must have nothing before something… they don’t know what they are arguing. Actually, the same thing could be said about creation. Who created the creator? The only feasible way for a god to exist and “create” the universe is if the universe is timeless, otherwise something had to create him (or her). This argument, in my opinion, would be perfectly valid.

 

This brings me to my next question about understanding and experience. Why in the world would a [timeless] creator wait an infinite amount of time to create a single creature of trillions, on a single planet of infinitely many, and make us so insignificant and futile among the vastness of the universe?  Seems rather dull and anti-climactic… where are the fireworks and streamers?

Like I said throughout this entire post, our knowledge is limited by our experiences. Humans have always had a tendency to fill the unknown with something supernatural that might have the ability to answer all the questions. I find the utmost beauty in the unknown because it is what leaves room for exploration and knowledge. Knowing I am actually a breathing, insignificant creature in this universe without a purpose other than one that I create for myself allows me to break free and open my mind to all possibilities of thought. I can only hope to increase the limit of my experience such that an understanding of the universe we live in is more readily grasped… even if it is only a minute increase. Everyone should strive to experience as much as possible because once it’s over, it’s probably over.

On another note, here I explain why death is vital to living a happy and successful life: http://iantimberlake.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/where-do-humans-get-their-life-value-life-and-death-i-can-tell-you/

Related articles

• Life’s a Bitch and Then You Die (the Universe, that is) (psychminder.com)
• Do we really understand gravity? Physicists think, maybe… (pakos.me)
• Infinite deja vu (blaspheromones.wordpress.com)
• About time: What is it? (tleonidas.wordpress.com)

Where Do Humans Get Their Life Value? Life and Death… I Can Tell You.

It is a very basic question to ask, one that I don’t believe very many people question that often… if ever. Where do we get our life value? This is a separate question from ‘what is our purpose’, which is more of the root question. But when you ask about strictly “value”, you get into a hotbed of all sorts of ideology. “Who are you to judge me and put a value on my life?!” You might say. Fair enough. But who are you to not question it about yourself?

I’ve asked this question to several friends of mine and they all seem to spit out the same answer; family, friends, and religion are pretty much the exclusive three responses. But this still isn’t going deep enough (inception anyone?). Jokes aside, the value of your life is NOT family, friends or religion… because I could see someone in the world living a very happy life without any of those three items. So I’ll ask you again, what is the one true thing in every single human life that makes everyone worth something?

And no the answer is not that it’s different for everyone. The answer is time, or lack there of of it. Seems simple and mundane and almost cliché which is why some of you probably stopped reading after the end of that last sentence, but hear me out.

 

Everything great in this world, EVERYTHING, is great because we die. Am I being pessimistic, no, I’m being the opposite. Think about it on the extreme side. If we were impervious to death, what would be exciting? Where would the value come from in accomplishing something great when you virtually have an unlimited amount of time to accomplish it? What would the level of love be towards your family if you knew they were always going to be around? What about looking back on years past, you wouldn’t be able to quaintly remember the carelessness of your childhood or the years of your college prime because the aging process would not exist. Exist, that’s a funny word, because without death, all you would be doing is existing… instead of living.

Time is the currency of life. And that cannot be refuted.

The reason we have value in our lives is solely because our head is ‘on the chopping block’, so to speak. Because our time is limited on this planet means that every decision we make will unequivocally alter the path and the final position of our lives. It doesn’t mean that there is no room for mistake in your decisions, it just means that every decision is an important one… even the ones that seem terribly mundane like if I should ride my bike to work or drive to work. Or if I should call that girl I’ve been thinking about or wait. Or if I should apologize to a friend for borrowing his book without asking.

Obviously, religion is a huge factor in how people view life and death. For many religious, the purpose and meaning of life is to worship the lord. Which is a completely valid purpose if that is what you believe in. On the other hand, atheists and agnostics believe that they are more at peace with knowing there is nothing after death. To them, it puts more worth on life itself because the end of life is more (shall we say) “final”. Which brings my argument to greater light… humans, in general, find worth in life the more they realize time is against them.

 

Take a terminally ill patient, for example. How many stories/movies/books/magazines/tv shows/etc. have you seen that depict a terminally ill patient going out and having the time of their life? The list is endless, I think the show House probably has 15+ episodes with just such a story line. Why do people have the urge to go out and make something of their life? Because they have a heightened sense of imminent death. Can you imagine what you would do with your life and what you might accomplish if you had such a heightened sense of imminent death? It would be unbelievably rich. The time you spend with your family, friends, partner, would be beyond simply love. Everything exciting you do would be infinitely more cherished. The little things in life would already mean more to you than ever before.

Every person has stakes in the game of life and it all revolves around the time you have on Earth. Every person believes in their own reason or purpose for existing but until you understand the value of it and why the value of your life only exists because you will eventually die, then you might as well not have a purpose. If I were given the option to live forever, or even simply to live well into the future, I would politely decline; It would suck the value out of the actual living part of existing. Death is more connected to life than anything else, so live it up, and make yourself worth something. So use the time you have such that when you get to the dying part of life, you’ll be able to look back and say, “yup, that was worth it”.

Please, leave a comment if you agree or want to share your views on where we get our value.