11 August 2015

Notes - worldly humor / media fun / evolution

         Mid-morning. You headed to the grocery early as Linda was up making a fresh Georgia peach pie – flour was needed. Carol is working on clothes washing and Linda is cleaning up the kitchen. The plan is to go to the early show at the Regal to see Mission Impossible and dine in on popcorn and cola – an old time summer treat. – Amorella

         0925 hours. This morning I sent Doug an article.

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Science & Environment

Fading cosmos quantified in 21 colours
By Jonathan Webb
 Science reporter, BBC News

10 August 2015

A team of astronomers has published a multi-coloured survey of five chunks of space - and offered the best estimate yet of how fast the Universe is fading.

They analysed the light from 200,000 galaxies in 21 wavelengths and found that the energy output of the Universe has nearly halved in two billion years.

This agrees with previous calculations, confirming that the lights are slowly going out right across this spectrum.

The drop is largely due to the falling rate at which new stars are formed.

The results, which come from the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey, were unveiled at the general assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Honolulu, Hawaii.

"We used as many space and ground-based telescopes as we could get our hands on to measure the energy output of over 200,000 galaxies across as broad a wavelength range as possible," said GAMA's principal investigator Prof Simon Driver, from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research in Western Australia.

He and his team are now opening up this huge collection of data for other astronomers to work on.

"The data release means that a whole lot more people outside the team are going to be able to jump on the data and do science with it, which is incredibly important," said Dr Stephen Wilkins of the University of Sussex, another GAMA team member.

He told BBC News that the strength of GAMA is that it combines so many wavelengths, where previous surveys have concentrated on a few.

Because the team used a variety of the world's most powerful telescopes - both earthbound and in orbit - their analysis spans wavelengths from UV light to infrared, including the small strip of visible wavelengths in the middle.

That means they can look at light from stars that are both young and old, as well as light that has been absorbed and then re-emitted by dust. So the new assessment of the Universe's decline includes information from a huge variety of galaxies, including those hidden behind dust.

'Nodding off'

"We know that star formation peaked a few billion years ago and has been declining since. This is just a new way of measuring that decline," Dr Wilkins said.

"It's a new spin, and it completely agrees with the previous results - but it's tightened the error bars as well."

Specifically, when the team totted up the total energy output of galaxies at three different ages, they saw a steady slump. In total, from 2.25 billion years ago to 0.75 billion years ago, the Universe's output apparently fell by about 40%.

"The rate at which stars are forming is slowing down so much that we are now starting to see the total energy output of all the stars decreasing," Dr Wilkins explained. This happens because the stars that already exist - on average - get older, smaller and less energetic.
Prof Driver wrapped the findings into a sad but cosy analogy: "The Universe will decline from here on in, like an old age that lasts forever," he said. "The Universe has basically sat down on the sofa, pulled up a blanket and is about to nod off for an eternal doze."
The eventual end of the Universe is still an awfully long way off, the team said - and it is far too early to put a date on it.

"The rate at which stars form is probably going to decline more and more," Dr Wilkins said. "So the Universe will, based on our expectations, become fainter and fainter and fainter. But there's a huge amount of uncertainty there because we don't understand so much of the underlying cosmology."

The team's analysis of the great cosmic drowsiness has been submitted to the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, but is not yet peer-reviewed.

Dr Aprajita Verma, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford, said GAMA offered a unique and valuable data set because of its spread of wavelengths.

"We know that galaxies can exhibit very different properties if you look at them purely in the visible, compared to other wavelengths," she told the BBC. "This study is making a census of their emissions, right the way from the UV through to the sub-millimetre range."
Dr Verma was also pleased the wider research community would get its hands on the data. "It will spawn lots of new studies," she said.

Selected and edited from - http://www.bbcDOTcom/news/science-environment-33846857

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         0932 hours. I love the set up formula of the BBC science articles – very easy to read.

         Of real interest is that the stars are fading away, quite slowly from a human being’s standard but this appears to be the way physics is. – Amorella

         0935 hours. This article coupled with yesterday’s shows that any sense of lasting permanence of our species is a wishful illusion – not even a tombstone. Shakespeare’s lines come to mind –

“What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”

         0947 hours. Not even dust, Hamlet, no dust at all. Nothing. This is how the world ends, not even with a whimper – so much for the poetry. Here today; gone tomorrow. Such an indignity to human arrogance and pride – I like this aspect – a bit of dark humor for the species to go out on. Cheers.

         Your humor indeed. Darkness when there remains nothing, not even with a capital, boy. Post. – Amorella

         0952 hours. It would make a lasting good sermon hear, if I would not even have a thread to dangle on. 

        After seeing Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation and coming home, the three of you had Carol’s chicken salad and Linda’s peach pie. Praise for both. Linda and Carol are both presently taking or attempting nap time. – Amorella


         1543 hours. I am thinking about naptime myself.

        You three had mixed vegetables and more chicken salad for supper. After the news the girls went upstairs to read their books and you watched two shows: “Falling Skies” and “Extant”.  – Amorella

         2152 hours. I still enjoy “Falling Skies” to an extent but I like “Extant” better though I am seeing too many similarities among the three robotic pieces of media – “Ex Machina” “Extant” and “Human”.

         You are seeing some similarities of genetics in “Extant” and easily imagine the thoughts of Neanderthals observing their own extinction to Homo sapiens. – Amorella

         2158 hours. I realize neither species had time to think on these things – genetics was nothing within their concepts. Still, it is interesting to speculate on today. How would it be if we knew we were becoming extinct and there was another species out there competing for our space and resources?

         How would you feel if you realized the Homo sapiens were becoming extinct and there was no species set to take your place? – Amorella

         2203 hours. What comes to mind first is Clarke’s Childhood’s End.

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Childhood's End
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Childhood's End is a 1953 science fiction novel by the British author Arthur C. Clarke. The story follows the peaceful alien invasion of Earth by the mysterious Overlords, whose arrival begins decades of apparent utopia under indirect alien rule, at the cost of human identity and culture. . . .

Plot summary

The novel is divided into three parts, following a third-person omniscient narrative with no main character.

Earth and the Overlords

In the late 20th century, the United States and the Soviet Union are competing to launch the first spaceship into orbit, for military purposes. However, when vast alien spaceships suddenly position themselves above Earth's principal cities, the space race is halted forever. After one week, the aliens announce they are assuming supervision of international affairs to prevent humanity's extinction. As the Overlords, they bring peace, and they claim that interference will be limited. They interfere only twice with human affairs: in South Africa, where sometime before their arrival Apartheid had collapsed and was replaced with savage persecution of the white minority; and in Spain, where they put an end to bull fighting. Some humans are suspicious of the Overlords' benign intent, as they never appear in physical form. Overlord Karellen, the "Supervisor for Earth," speaks directly only to Rikki Stormgren, the Finnish UN Secretary-General. Karellen tells Stormgren that the Overlords will reveal themselves in 50 years, when humanity will have become used to their presence. Stormgren smuggles a device onto Karellen's ship in an attempt to see Karellen's true form. He succeeds, is shocked and chooses to keep silent.

The Golden Age

Humankind enters a golden age of prosperity at the expense of creativity. As promised, five decades after their arrival the Overlords appear for the first time; they resemble the traditional human folk images of demons—large bipeds with leathery wings, horns and tails. The Overlords are interested in psychic research, which humans suppose is part of their anthropological study. Rupert Boyce, a prolific book collector on the subject, allows one Overlord, Rashaverak, to study these books at his home. To impress his friends with Rashaverak's presence, Boyce holds a party, during which he makes use of a Ouija board. An astrophysicist, Jan Rodricks, asks the identity of the Overlords' home star. George Greggson's wife Jean faints as the Ouija board reveals a star-catalog number consistent with the direction in which Overlord supply ships appear and disappear. Jan Rodricks stows away on an Overlord supply ship and travels 40 light-years to their home planet. Due to the time dilation of special relativity at near-light speeds, the elapsed time on the ship is only a few weeks, and he arranges to endure it in drug-induced hibernation.

The Last Generation

Although humanity and the Overlords have peaceful relations, some believe human innovation is being suppressed and that culture is becoming stagnant. One of these groups establishes "New Athens," an island colony devoted to the creative arts, which George and Jean Greggson join. The Overlords conceal a special interest in the Greggsons' children, Jeffrey and Jennifer Anne, and intervene to save Jeffrey's life when a tsunami strikes the island. The Overlords have been watching them since the incident with the Ouija board, which revealed the seed of the coming transformation hidden within Jean.

Sixty years after the Overlords' arrival, human children, beginning with the Greggsons', begin to display clairvoyance and telekinetic powers. Karellen reveals the Overlords' purpose; they serve the Overmind, a vast cosmic intelligence, born of amalgamated ancient civilizations, and freed from the limitations of material existence. Yet the Overlords themselves are strangely unable to join the Overmind, but serve it as a bridge species, charged with fostering other races' eventual merger with it. Because of this, Karellen expresses his envy of humanity. For the transformed children's safety, they are segregated on a continent of their own. No more human children are born, and many parents find their lives stripped of meaning, and die or commit suicide. The members of New Athens choose to destroy themselves with a nuclear bomb.

Jan Rodricks emerges from hibernation on the Overlord supply ship and arrives on their planet. The Overlords permit him a glimpse of how the Overmind communicates with them. When Jan returns to Earth (approximately 80 years after his departure by Earth time) he finds an unexpectedly altered planet. Humanity has effectively become extinct, and he is now the last man alive. Hundreds of millions of children – no longer fitting with what Rodricks defines as "human" – remain on the quarantined continent. Barely moving, with eyes closed and communicating by telepathy, they are the penultimate form of human evolution, having become a single group mind readying themselves to join the Overmind.

Some Overlords remain on Earth to study the children from a safe distance. When the evolved children mentally alter the Moon's rotation and make other planetary manipulations, it becomes too dangerous to remain. The departing Overlords offer to take Rodricks with them, but he chooses to stay to witness Earth's end, and transmit a report of what he sees.

Before they depart, Rodricks asks Rashaverak what encounter the Overlords had with Humanity in the past and what went wrong. For it was always assumed that the instinctual fear that Humans had of their "demonic" form was due to a traumatic encounter with them in the distant past. Rashaverak explains that it was the end of Humanity that was the traumatic event, and that the Overlord's presence and association with it was the cause of Humanity's fear of them. So the primal fear experienced by Humans was not due to a racial memory, but rather a premonition.

The Overlords are eager to escape from their own evolutionary dead end by studying the Overmind, so Rodricks's information is potentially of great value to them. By radio, Rodricks describes a vast burning column ascending from the planet. As the column disappears, Rodricks experiences a profound sense of emptiness when the Overlords have gone. Then material objects and the Earth itself begin to dissolve into transparency. Jan reports no fear, but a powerful sense of fulfillment. The Earth evaporates in a flash of light. Karellen looks back at the receding Solar System and gives a final salute to the human species.

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[Note] On September 3, 2014, Syfy announced that Childhood's End had been greenlit for six one-hour episodes, for a 2015 airing. . . . A trailer for the miniseries was released in May 2015, with the series scheduled for broadcast in December 2015.

Selected and edited from Wikipedia – Childhood’s End (novel)

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         2222 hours. I did not know about the upcoming series. I hope it is modernized time-wise and that it is well done. My science-fiction futures studies classes were required to read the book. What I enjoyed most was that the Overlords were in a genetic cul-de-sac – it was the humans that evolved. I can see this with robotics – we create the human-like machines and they don’t take over – all they have to do is wait and eventually our species will die out. The human-like machines learn to adapt and become more humane, but they do not die – their machinery just becomes more refined to the point they consider themselves their own species and Homo sapiens were their ancestors of sorts. Anyway, that is my fun thought in the moment.

         Post. - Amorella

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