Mid-morning. The snow has blown off the tree
and bush branches on this cloudy windy morning. You are feeling a bit more ‘grounded’
today, mostly with the recognition that knowing little to next to nothing gives
you a sense of bliss that allows you to refocus on what you enjoy writing about
the human condition which might as well begin as a seed rocked by an Angel
somewhat akin to the natural environment of this particular universe. –
Amorella
0937 hours. I would not think that I would make such a
consideration but it does sound as reasonable as any other. We begin as next to
nothing and we conclude nearly the same, so why should the middle be any
different save for ego and theatre. We have the ability to make noise so this
is what we do.
1056
hours. Here is something new:
*****
19-Nov-2014
Spooky alignment of
quasars across billions of light-years
VLT reveals alignments
***
Artist's Impression of
Mysterious Alignment of Quasar Rotation Axes
Caption: This artist's impression shows
schematically the mysterious alignments between the spin axes of quasars and
the large-scale structures that they inhabit that observations with ESO's Very
Large Telescope have revealed. These alignments are over billions of
light-years and are the largest known in the universe.
The large-scale structure is shown in blue
and quasars are marked in white with the rotation axes of their black holes
indicated with a line.
This picture is for illustration only and
does not depict the real distribution of galaxies and quasars.
Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
Usage Restrictions: None
Related news release: Spooky alignment
of quasars across billions of light-years
***
Quasars are galaxies with very active
supermassive black holes at their centres. These black holes are surrounded by
spinning discs of extremely hot material that is often spewed out in long jets
along their axes of rotation. Quasars can shine more brightly than all the
stars in the rest of their host galaxies put together.
A team led by Damien Hutsemékers from the
University of Liège in Belgium used the FORS
instrument on the VLT
to study 93 quasars that were known to form huge groupings spread over billions
of light-years, seen at a time when the Universe was about one third of its
current age.
"The first odd thing we noticed was
that some of the quasars' rotation axes were aligned with each other -- despite
the fact that these quasars are separated by billions of light-years,"
said Hutsemékers.
The team then went further and looked to
see if the rotation axes were linked, not just to each other, but also to the
structure of the Universe on large scales at that time.
When astronomers look at the distribution
of galaxies on scales of billions of light-years they find that they are not
evenly distributed. They form a cosmic web of filaments and clumps around huge
voids where galaxies are scarce. This intriguing and beautiful arrangement of
material is known as large-scale structure.
The new VLT results indicate that the
rotation axes of the quasars tend to be parallel to the large-scale structures
in which they find themselves. So, if the quasars are in a long filament then
the spins of the central black holes will point along the filament. The
researchers estimate that the probability that these alignments are simply the
result of chance is less than 1%.
"A correlation between the orientation
of quasars and the structurethey belong to is an important prediction of
numerical models of evolution of our Universe. Our data provide the first
observational confirmation of this effect, on scales much larger that what had
been observed to date for normal galaxies," adds Dominique Sluse of the
Argelander-Institut für Astronomie in Bonn, Germany and University of Liège.
The team could not see the rotation axes or
the jets of the quasars directly. Instead they measured the polarisation of the light from each quasar
and, for 19 of them, found a significantly polarised signal. The direction of
this polarisation, combined with other information, could be used to deduce the
angle of the accretion disc and hence the direction of the spin axis of the
quasar.
"The alignments in the new data, on
scales even bigger than current predictions from simulations, may be a hint
that there is a missing ingredient in our current models of the cosmos,"
concludes Dominique Sluse.
###
More information
This research was presented in a paper
entitled "Alignment of quasar polarizations with large-scale
structures", by D. Hutsemékers et al., to appear in the journal Astronomy
& Astrophysics on 19 November 2014.
The team is composed of D. Hutsemékers
(Institut d'Astrophysique et de Géophysique, Université de Liège, Liège,
Belgium), L. Braibant (Liège), V. Pelgrims (Liège) and D. Sluse
(Argelander-Institut für Astronomie, Bonn, Germany; Liège).
ESO
is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's
most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported
by 15 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France,
Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland
and the United Kingdom. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the
design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing
facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO
also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in
astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in
Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very
Large Telescope, the world's most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory
and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world's
largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope
designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is the European
partner of a revolutionary astronomical telescope ALMA, the largest
astronomical project in existence. ESO is currently planning the 39-metre
European Extremely Large optical/near-infrared Telescope, the E-ELT, which will
become "the world's biggest eye on the sky".
From - http://www.eurekalertDOTorg/
*****
You almost automatically sent Doug a copy of
this article. The point, to you, is that an organization exists within physics
that is very broad and yet almost invisible to human observation. This, to you,
shows there may be much more to reality than humans suspect. You would like to
hope so to give humans a greater grasp of humility than they appear to show. –
Amorella
1112 hours. I did not consider the conclusion of your
statement; but it is reasonable to me. It is like I am standing in the
classroom pointed to the chalkboard and saying, “See, this is what we do
not know.” I will not apologize for this.
After noon. You have been working on the
Scottish and English genealogies in “Grandma’s Story” segments leading up to
“The Brothers” segments and can better see the problems as you ran off two
name/date sheets and can compare the families directly across from one another.
– Amorella
1223 hours. The main problems stem from the ninth
century but I am correcting them. Too many names, too many dates that have to
better correlate. This is a tedious task but certainly not insurmountable. It
reminds me so much of real family genealogies. People are missing and the
numbers show it, either than or the numbers are wrong – a different person or a
different generation with the same name or three or five generations with the
same first name. I am going to keep one name only up into the fifteenth
century, that is a century before the Tudor’s. Then I have to have names that
are similar but corruptible to the modern last names of Greystone and Bleacher.
You had an earlier than usual supper at
Panera on Mason-Montgomery while running errands after Carol had finished at
the Hair Dresser’s. Once home you watched several programs but called it quits
before nine. Tomorrow the furnace people will be here at eight for a ‘clean up’
for winter inspection, etc. You were ready to shut the computer down when you
checked a BBC article that appears interesting. Drop it in and that’s all for
tonight. Post. – Amorella
** **
BBC
Future - IN DEPTH
19 November 2014
Psychology:
How many senses do we have?
By Christian
Jarrett
We often
talk of having five senses as a universal truth. In reality, there may be more
– or fewer – depending on the way you look at the question. Christian Jarrett
explains the controversy.
Some myths
about the brain, such as the idea we only use 10% of our grey matter, are
notorious, especially among neuroscientists. These myths crop up every now and
then (look at the premise of the Lucy movie this summer), but they are quickly
shot down by those in the know.
In contrast
to these enduring stories, other misconceptions are stealthier and slip beneath
the radar unrecognised. One of these is the idea that the human brain is served
by five senses. This belief is so ingrained that even the scientifically
literate will treat it as taken-for-granted common knowledge.
Perhaps it
is due to the idea’s noble origins. The principle of five basic human senses is
often traced back to Aristotle’s De Anima (On the Soul), in which he devotes a
separate chapter to vision, hearing, touch, smell and taste. Today, the five
senses are considered such an elementary truth that it is sometimes used as a
point of consensus before writers embark on more mysterious or contentious
topics. “What do we actually mean by reality?” asked the author of a recent article in New Scientist magazine. “A
straightforward answer is that it means everything that appears to our five
senses.”
Incoming
information
If only it
were that simple. Simply defining what we mean by a “sense” leads you down a
slippery slope into philosophy. One, somewhat vague, definition might argue
that a human sense is simply a unique way for the brain to receive information
about the world and the body. If that is the case, then we can claim with
confidence that there are certainly more than five human senses.
First consider the senses that relate
to the position of our bodies. Close your eyes, and then touch your right
forefinger to your left elbow tip. Easy? How did you do it? Somehow you knew
where the end of your finger was and you also knew the position of your left
elbow. This sense is known as proprioception and it’s the awareness we have of
where each of our body parts is located in space. Proprioception is possible
thanks to receptors in our muscles known as spindles, which tell the brain
about the current length and stretch of the muscles.
Now imagine
you are blindfolded and I tilted you forwards slowly. You’d immediately have a
sensation of how your body’s position was changing in relation to gravity. This
is thanks to the fluid-filled vestibular system in your inner
ear, which helps us keep balance. This system also gives us our experience of
acceleration through space, and it links up with the eyes, making it possible
to cancel out our own motion. If you wiggle your head around while reading, for
example, you’ll see that it makes little difference to your ability to read and
stay focused on the words.
There are
also numerous senses providing us with information about the inner state of our
bodies. The most obvious of these are hunger and thirst, inner body pain, and
the need to empty the bladder or bowel. Less obvious and less available to
conscious awareness are incoming signals about blood pressure, the pH level of
the cerebrospinal fluid, plus many more.
Some might take that definition
further, to argue that the senses should be defined by the types of receptors
we have; a different sensor means a different sense. If that were the case,
then even well-known senses quickly split into different varieties. For
instance, if you closed your eyes and I surprised you with an ice cube down
your back, you’d experience a shock of cold. This sensation would be distinct
from the mere touch of a plastic cube, say. Alongside temperature-sensitive
receptors, packed in our skin we also have receptors dedicated to mechanical
pressure, pain (known as nociceptors) and itch (pruritic receptors). Using the
same logic, however, taste can be divided into sweet, sour, salty and bitter
and potentially “umami”, which is activated by monosodium
glutamate and is associated with a “meaty” flavour. Splitting the senses in
this way doesn’t feel like the most intuitive way of dealing with the question,
however, and it becomes even more absurd if we turn to smell: humans have over
1,000 distinct olfactory receptors tuned to different odorous molecules. Should
each one be counted as a different sense?
At the other
extreme, you could restrict our definition of discrete sense to the physical
categories of incoming information. We can simplify the human senses down to
just three – mechanical (which takes in touch, hearing and proprioception);
chemical (including taste, smell and internal senses); and light.
Yet another way of approaching this
issue is to think not about the category of incoming information or the
perceptual experience, but about how incoming sensory information is used. A
great example is the human capacity for echo-location. Human echo-location
works by a person emitting a clicking sound with the tongue and listening for
how it rebounds off the immediate environment. In the USA there is even a
remarkable team of blind cyclists – Team Bat – led by Daniel Kisch, who use
echo-location to go mountain biking (see www.worldaccessfortheblind.org
for videos). This ability depends on the traditional sense of hearing, but the
perceptual experience and function is more akin to vision. You don’t need to be
blind to try it; even sighted people can learn to “see in the dark” using echo-location. For
these reasons, some consider it a separate sense.
As you can
see, there is no single, logical way to define the senses. In some ways, it
might make little sense to draw divisions between them at all – considering
that they often seem to blend together; the colour of food – and even the
sounds of a restaurant – can influence taste, for instance. Understanding these
relationships is important when studying conditions like synaesthesia and could
even shed light on consciousness itself.
But
whichever way you look at it, five is a pretty arbitrary and meaningless number
– a glaring “myth” of the brain that needs further recognition. Indeed, once
you start thinking about all the different kinds of information reaching the
human brain, you might even find that you develop a brand new sense – a
radar-like sensitivity to some of the other misconceptions regarding the way
the brain experiences the world. You might have once called it a “sixth sense”
– but you know better now, don’t you?
This article is based on a chapter
from Christian Jarrett’s new book Great Myths of the Brain (Wiley).
From BBC Future, 19 November 2014
** **
2204
hours. This is interesting and I understand the point in terms of definition of
the senses. It is down to definition first. I don’t believe I have any other
than the five usual senses. What is a sixth sense anyway?
** **
English definition of “sixth
sense”
Noun – an ability to know
something without using the ordinary five senses of sight, hearing, smell,
touch and taste –
[My sixth sense told me something
awful was going to happen.]
(Definition of sixth sense from
the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary; Cambridge University Press)
** **
2213
hours. As long as ‘sixth sense’ is used as a synonym for ‘intuition’ I will
accept it in context.
** **
intuition – noun
the
ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious
reasoning: we shall allow our intuition to guide us.
•
a thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than
conscious reasoning: your insights and intuitions as a native speaker are
positively sought.
ORIGIN late
Middle English (denoting spiritual insight or immediate spiritual
communication): from late Latin intuitio(n-), from Latin
intueri ‘consider’
Selected and edited from
the Oxford/American software
** **
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