Notes - To Colorado /

Wednesday

       Craig, Alta, Carol and myself left in two cars mid-morning, stopping for brunch at First Watch off I-75. Six hours later we arrived at Collinsville for the night at a Super 8, which are popular in the Mid-West. As it was quite warm and was going to be hot before mid-day on Thursday we skipped the Botanical Gardens. I took one look at the latest USA Today and was keyed to see the article that I found later on the Time site. I have it posted at the conclusion of this post. The next day drove on to Independence, Missouri for a stop at the Truman Presidential Library.

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SCIENCE

One Star Over, a Planet That Might Be Another Earth

By KENNETH CHANG     AUG. 24, 2016

Another Earth could be circling the star right next door to us.

Astronomers announced on Wednesday that they had detected a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest neighbor to our solar system. Intriguingly, the planet is in the star’s “Goldilocks zone,” where it may be neither too hot nor too cold. That means liquid water could exist at the surface, raising the possibility for life.

Although observations in recent years, particularly by NASA’s Kepler planet-finding mission, have uncovered a bounty of Earth-size worlds throughout the galaxy, this one holds particular promise because it might someday, decades from now, be possible to reach. It’s 4.2 light-years, or 25 trillion miles, away from Earth, which is extremely close in cosmic terms.

One astronomer likened it to a flashing neon sign. “I’m the nearest star, and I have a potentially habitable planet!” said R. Paul Butler, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science and a member of the team that made the discovery.

Guillem Anglada-Escudé, an astronomer at Queen Mary University of London and the leader of the team that made the discovery reported in the journal Nature, said, “We know there are terrestrial planets around many stars, and we kind of expected the nearby stars would contain terrestrial planets. This is not exciting because of this. The excitement is because it is the nearest one.”

Beyond the planet’s size and distance from its parent star, much about it is still mysterious. Scientists are working off computer models that offer mere hints of what’s possible: Conditions could be Earthlike, but they could also be hellish like Venus, or cold and dry like Mars.

There is no picture of the planet, which has been designated Proxima b. Instead, Dr. Anglada-Escudé and his colleagues detected it indirectly, studying via telescope the light of the parent star. They zeroed in on clocklike wobbles in the starlight, as the colors shifted slightly to the reddish end of the spectrum, then slightly bluish. The oscillations, caused by the bobbing back-and-forth motion of the star as it is pulled around by the gravity of the planet, are similar to how the pitch of a police siren rises or falls depending on whether the patrol car is traveling toward or away from the listener.

From the size of the wobbles, the astronomers determined that Proxima b is at least 1.3 times the mass of Earth, although it could be several times larger. A year on Proxima b — the time to complete one orbit around the star — lasts just 11.2 days.

Continue reading the main story

And the planet’s proximity to Earth gives hope that robotic probes could someday be zooming past the planet for a close-up look. A privately funded team of scientists and technology titans, led by the Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner and the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, have announced Breakthrough Starshot Initiative, a project to develop and launch a fleet of iPhone-size spacecraft within two to three decades. Their proposed destination is the Alpha Centauri star system, which includes two larger, sunlike stars in addition to Proxima Centauri.

“We will definitely aim at Proxima,” said Avi Loeb, a Harvard astronomer who is the chairman of an advisory committee for Breakthrough Starshot. “This is like finding prime real estate in our neighborhood.”

This newly discovered planet is much closer to its parent star, about five million miles apart, than Earth is to the sun, 93 million miles. Even Mercury, the innermost planet of our solar system, is 36 million miles from the sun.

While Proxima b might be similar to Earth, its parent star, Proxima Centauri, is very different from the sun. It is tiny, belonging to a class of stars known as red dwarfs, with only about 12 percent of the mass of the sun and about 1/600th the luminosity — so dim that it cannot be seen from Earth with the naked eye.

Thus Proxima b, despite its closeness to the star, receives less warmth than Earth, but enough that water could flow on the surface. Whether the planet has liquid water or an atmosphere is “pure speculation at this point,” Dr. Anglada-Escudé said in a news conference.

If the planet formed close to the star, it could be dry and airless, but it might also have formed farther out and migrated inward to its current orbit. It is also possible that the planet formed dry and was later bombarded by comets or ice-rich asteroids.

“There are viable models and stories that lead to a viable Earthlike planet today,” Dr. Anglada-Escudé said. Even if it is habitable, scientists studying the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe spiritedly debate whether planets around these red dwarfs are a promising place to look. Small stars are more erratic, especially during their youth, and eruptions off the star’s surface could strip away the atmosphere from such planets. Levels of X-rays and other high-energy radiation bombarding the planet would be 100 times that on Earth, the scientists said.

Although the planet, lost in the glare of the star, cannot be viewed by current telescopes, astronomers hope to see it when they next close orbit suggests that the rotation of the planet would probably be gravitationally locked by the star’s pull. Just as the same side of the moon always faces Earth, one side of Proxima b is probably eternally bright, always facing the star, while the other is ever dark.eneration is built a decade from now.

Additional visible light observations further convinced the scientists that they were not being fooled by variations in the star itself erroneously mimicking the presence of a planet.

The discovery was more than a decade and a half in the making. Michael Endl, an astronomer at the University of Texas and one of the authors of the Nature paper, peered at Proxima Centauri for eight years beginning in 2000, looking for hints of a planet.

“At that time, I didn’t see anything highly, highly significant,” Dr. Endl said in an interview. “Then we published our data and moved on.”

Later, Dr. Anglada-Escudé, analyzing data from a different instrument on a different telescope, found inconclusive hints of a planet. He reached out to Dr. Endl to reanalyze the earlier data, and he also spearheaded the Pale Red Dot project, which tried to observe Proxima Centauri daily for two months earlier this year.

The new observations clearly revealed the 11.2-day period of the planet, and the signal matched what Dr. Anglada-Escudé had suspected earlier. It also matched a signal that was hidden in the noise of Dr. Endl’s data, which was lower in precision and observed Proxima Centauri once a week or so, not every day.

There are hints of perhaps another planet, perhaps more, but those hints are still ambiguous, the scientists said. The discovery could provide impetus for planet-finding telescopes. Ruslan Belikov of the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., has proposed a small space telescope costing less than $175 million dedicated to the search for planets in Alpha Centauri. While it would not be powerful enough to spot Proxima b, its existence would give more confidence that terrestrial planets also orbit the two sunlike stars there.

“It just raises the public awareness there’s a new world just next door,” Dr. Belikov said. “It’s a paradigm shift in people’s minds.”

http://www.nytimesDOTcom/2016/08/25/science/earth-planet-proximacentauri.html?emc=edit_ta_20160824&nlid=54414085&ref=cta&_r=0

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       This article is very exciting to me. It would be very cool to eventually prove the planet contains life. If Mars shows it has or had life it will change the chances that life exists in many more places.

25 August 2016

       We thoroughly enjoyed the Truman Museum, Chapel and burial place, and also seeing the Truman home. It was too late in the day to go inside, but we may stop and do this on the way home. The museum was well worth the visit. That night we spent the night at a Comfort Suite in Topeka, Kansas.

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The Harry S. Truman Library and Museum is the presidential library and resting place of Harry S. Truman, the 33^rd President of the United States (1945–1953), located on U.S. Highway 24 in Independence, Missouri. It was the first presidential library to be created under the provisions of the 1955 Presidential Libraries Act, and is one of thirteen presidential libraries administered by the National Archives and Records Administration.

Wikipedia

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26 August 2016

       Yesterday we visited the Eisenhower library in Abilene, Kansas. It was also a great exhibit – if you love American history from the 1940’s through the 1960’s you will certainly enjoy both libraries. At least the four of us did. It was a long day of driving afterwards (through several rain storms and lots of flat land farms) – very pretty and certainly different from Ohio. We arrived at Colorado Springs about six o’clock local time, eating dinner at Chili’s and staying at a Quality Inn.

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The Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum is one of The 8 Wonders of Kansas because it tells of the remarkable lifetime achievements of Dwight D. Eisenhower, five-star General and President of the United States!

Dwight D. Eisenhower commanded the greatest amphibious military operation in history, the 1944 Allied invasion of Nazi controlled Western Europe. His many military achievements are interpreted superbly in the galleries at the Eisenhower Museum.

He is the only five-star General to become President of the United States. The displays interpret the highlights of his two terms (1953-1961). Significantly, his administration initiated the nation's first civil rights legislation in ninety years. He also sent Army troops when nine black students were intimidated into leaving Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. More than any other president, Eisenhower was responsible for the Interstate Highway System. He was also so highly skilled in public relations that he seized the opportunity to become the first "television president." 

Five galleries at the Eisenhower Museum tell the story of Eisenhower from his childhood days in Abilene through his retirement years. One gallery represents the life and lifestyle of one of America's most beloved First Ladies, Mamie Eisenhower.

Visitors can also tour the nineteenth-century wood-frame house, located on its original site, where the Eisenhower's lived from 1898 until the death of the President's mother Ida in 1946. The Place of Meditation is the final resting place of the President, his wife Mamie, and their first-born son, Doud Dwight.

Selected and edited from- https://www.kansassamplerDOTorg/8wonders/8wondersofkansas-view.php?id=13

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27 August 2016

       Today we visited where we are staying tomorrow night and drove up to Divide and saw several sites such as Pike's Peak and the Garden of the Gods – very impressive pieces of nature  – most cool. I am ready for bed and it’s not even eight o’clock yet. We are having a very good time. The weather, for the most part, has been a delight. This is another great travel adventure with friends. 

       Post. - Amorella

Notes - Kim / getting ready /

       You called this morning to wish Kimberly Jean a Happy Birthday. Owen lost his second front tooth yesterday – the first day of school he lost his first front tooth. Kim sent the video of Paul gently pulling the second one. Owen showed himself to be mostly manly about it. Six year olds can still be cute when they don’t realize it. Both boys like school so far. Owen likes math best (like his mother) and Brennan now wears a uniform like Owen did in pre-K. Carol is getting her hair done and you ran errands, the big item was a new blood pressure machine; it is an arm unit that takes four AA Batteries once ever two years or so. It is smaller and you like it so far. You also decided to put all your stats on the iPhone and the old first generation iPad is now used for Pandora in the wired living room sound system.

       1216 hours. It’s been a good day so far. We are mostly packed save for last minute items and of course we have to load them in the car tonight or tomorrow morning. Craig and Alta should be here in an hour and a half or so.

       Post. - Amorella

Notes - tradition / work-a-day / shadow substitute

       Morning. The house is ready to be cleaned. Jill should arrive shortly. You have a list of errands for the day. The first is dropping Carol off at Hoxworth to donate blood, buy and send a b-card to Kim for tomorrow, grocery, etc. Craig and Alta arrive tomorrow between one and two. Most everything is packed and ready to go for Wednesday. The first leg of the trip is near St. Louis and it is only about six hours, about the time it takes to drive to Chicago so the plan is to wait awhile stop for brunch in Westchester, probably at First Watch, then take a leisurely drive to Indianapolis and points west. You are going to let Craig take the lead because you are generally a more aggressive (faster) driver. You’ll follow his pace. – Amorella

       1019 hours. Blue sky this morning so it will probably be hot. I will wait for Carol at McDonalds and she can give me a call when completed. We need to have a good lunch to celebrate her blood work; this is a tradition.

       Post. - Amorella

       You have been waiting for Carol for almost an hour. She called a few minutes ago and said it will be another hour. You have been checking email and reading Quora online, and you are at Panera on Mason-Montgomery Road because it is closer to Hoxworth than McDonalds is. – Carol just called and is ready to be picked up. Later, dude. – Amorella

       You picked out two cards for Kim while Carol is still at Kroger’s. Fortunately you found a shady spot to wait. – Amorella

       1218 hours. Both cards are ‘Shoebox’ variety – fun and funnier. One mentioned all Kim’s good points were inherited from her parents. I particularly like this one. The other says she is “Fabulous” which is one she should like. Here’s Carol.

       Home. Carol is writing bills then off to lunch. – You are thinking of doing something productive (writing wise) but the conditions have not been ripe for it. By conditions I mean mostly your own internal conditions not the landscape environment. – Amorella

       1240 hours. I understand. Library quiet helps but the actual moment of ‘focus’ is something I have not thought about. It must be some sort of automaticity because I do not sit most of the time and will myself to write. I do though with a “time to get on with it” or “time to start”. Shoot, half my life might be on automatic as far as I know. Hemingway used to write in the morning and fish in the afternoon.

       Post. - Amorella

       You had lunch at Cracker Barrel at Carol’s request and you both had your regular country dinners – Carol had fish and you grilled chicken. You ran more errands and now that you are home you are pretty much done. – Amorella

       1544 hours. It is always pleasant to come home to a clean house. I’m glad Carol doesn’t have to think about it so much. Now if she would just automatically have those monthly and insurance bills paid she would be a lot more comfortable. Kim is trying to talk her into it.

       I was on AOL News and the article “Doctor pens book that claims to reveal ‘rare details of Heaven’”. I did not find the book review interesting. Here is a quote:

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Neurologist Oliver Sacks, author of the book Hallucinations, once said that these "life-altering religious experiences are ‘hallucinations,” and that "whether revelatory or banal, are not of supernatural origin; they are part of the normal range of human consciousness and experience."

Selected and edited from “Doctor pens book that claims to reveal ‘rare details of Heaven’” AOL editors, AOL, August 22

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       The article mentions Neurologist Oliver Sack’s book Hallucinations so I took a look at a ‘Good Reads’ review.

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Hallucinations

by Oliver Sacks

Have you ever seen something that wasn’t really there? Heard someone call your name in an empty house? Sensed someone following you and turned around to find nothing?

Hallucinations don’t belong wholly to the insane. Much more commonly, they are linked to sensory deprivation, intoxication, illness, or injury. People with migraines may see shimmering arcs of light or tiny, Lilliputian figures of animals and people. People with failing eyesight, paradoxically, may become immersed in a hallucinatory visual world. Hallucinations can be brought on by a simple fever or even the act of waking or falling asleep, when people have visions ranging from luminous blobs of color to beautifully detailed faces or terrifying ogres. Those who are bereaved may receive comforting “visits” from the departed. In some conditions, hallucinations can lead to religious epiphanies or even the feeling of leaving one’s own body.

Humans have always sought such life-changing visions, and for thousands of years have used hallucinogenic compounds to achieve them. As a young doctor in California in the 1960s, Oliver Sacks had both a personal and a professional interest in psychedelics. These, along with his early migraine experiences, launched a lifelong investigation into the varieties of hallucinatory experience.

Here, with his usual elegance, curiosity, and compassion, Dr. Sacks weaves together stories of his patients and of his own mind-altering experiences to illuminate what hallucinations tell us about the organization and structure of our brains, how they have influenced every culture’s folklore and art, and why the potential for hallucination is present in us all, a vital part of the human condition. 

Selected from http://www.goodreadsDOTcom/book/show/13330771-hallucinations

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       1601 hours. What I ought to do is buy the book and read it on the trip. Sack’s is one of my best sources to tell me that scientifically, Amorella is an hallucination. I don’t argue with the science. I just don’t agree with it one hundred percent. – rho

       Doubt always wins with you don’t it, orndorff. – Amorella

       I love you, Amorella whether you are an hallucination or a extraordinary reality, I don’t doubt that. I love G-D more. I also love friends and family. - rho

       Agreed. That really covers the topic from my perspective. Read the book if you like. You like Sack’s books. - Amorella

       1610 hours. Why did you have to misuse ‘don’t’?

       I didn’t have to. - Amorella

       1612 hours. I would never do that.

       Your daughter Kim says you should never use never. She says you taught her that in Logic. – Amorella 

       You are home. Carol is talking to Amy while Tim is mowing the yard. They both watch the house as well as take care of the cats – the Kings are best of neighbors. You ran more errands and on the way stopped at Barnes and Noble and picked up the paperback version of Sacks’ Hallucinations. Shortly you will be heading out for a light supper of McD’s Egg McMuffins topped off with a couple of kids’ cups of Graeters. – Amorella

       1858 hours. It has been a good day so far. Looking forward to seeing Craig and Alta tomorrow.

       All for today, boy. Post. - Amorella

       2049 hours. I read the Introduction to Hallucinations. The conclusion is very important to me.

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Conclusion of the Introduction:

“Here, then, is a sampling which I hope will give a sense of the great range, the varieties, of hallucinatory experience, an essential part of the human condition.” 

p.xiv. Hallucinations, O. Sacks.

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       This gives you the continued focus on what being human is. Or, as the ancient Greeks might have asked, “What is it then, to be human?” Your books and blog, if nothing else are your demonstration, your response to this ancient question. Do you agree? – Amorella

       2059 hours. I do; however, your word choice makes these works appear to be more important than they actually are. I like this stuff. I would like to understand more of what it is to be a human being, to exist as a human being. This is what every Homo sapiens is, myself included. I would like to study our species as if we were aliens because in doing so I am allowed another quality of dimensional definition. Using/thinking in the personal pronoun ‘I’ limits what we are; ‘we’ is better, ‘they’ is better also. (Amorella, I am at a loss here. I know what I want to say but I don’t know how to best express this in words.)

       Expressing these points as you do is perhaps not the best use of expression but they are your impressions. Deal with it, boy. You cannot be what you are not. Enjoy the rest of the evening. Post. – Amorella

       2111 hours. This is interesting. I see from your response that my request is one of slight arrogance. I did not realize this consciously.

       Your insight is not lost. Humility is gained. – Amorella

       2113 hours. Thank you, Amorella. Hallucination or not, you help me to see who I am;  I see you as my spiritual teacher. (This seems odd to think.)

       This is because you have disdain for spiritual guides and that sort of New Age thinking and you have no other suitable words to use. – Amorella

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teacher - noun

the new physics teacher used to be a nun: educator, tutor, instructor, master, mistress, governess, educationist, preceptor; coach, trainer; lecturer, professor, don; guide, mentor, guru, counselor; substitute teacher, sub; informal teach; formal pedagogue; historical schoolman, schoolmarm.

Selected and edited from the Oxford/American software

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       2125 hours. These words are of little use to me in describing how I relate to and understand you to be to me. It would be different if you were an entity unto yourself beyond me (seeable to others) but you are not. You are not as Merlyn or Socrates or Jesus or any human I can name as a shadow substitute. No more thoughts presently. I’m done. – rho

       Post. - Amorella

   

Notes - the keyboard / Cahokia Mounds /

       Mid-morning, Sunday. You finished the paper and breakfast; Carol is still working on the paper. Spooky is curled up downstairs and Jadah is sitting in a sunbeam next to the bedroom window. – Amorella

       1007 hours. When I began writing characters for my stories many years ago I decided to give them a sense of free will, thus they are allowed to write themselves. Yesterday, on Facebook, one of my former students Jeff suggests that being in third person in a story has no bearing on real life. This struck me strange because I walk around in third-person sometimes. Third-person adds a dimension and gives me a perspective I would not otherwise have. I don’t like the pronoun I so much when there are whole worlds of human ‘I’s’ out there. Being in a state of legal existence (passport, driver’s license, etc.) is that ‘I’. “I want. I need. I like. I hate.” I feel the need to read my thoughts. Reading my thoughts gives the thinking a more solidifying dimension than having thoughts swirling around in my head with the memory to hold on to a few. I have seven years of ‘published-on-line blog” to show I don’t have much in my head. Like Amorella says, “You know next to nothing.” I agree wholeheartedly. Proof is in the blog and the Merlyn novels. (1029)

       Your fingers love the keyboard, boy. – Amorella

       1030 hours. No question about it. I love the keyboard. The keyboard allows the invisible to become visible.

       Post. – Amorella

       You spent more time packing clothes (summer to late Fall). The top of Pike’s Peak, fourteen thousand feet may even be cold. You were reading about your first stop for the night – Collinsville, Illinois.

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Collinsville is a city located mainly in Madison County, and partially in St. Clair County, both in Illinois. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 25,579, an increase from 24,707 in 2000. Collinsville is approximately 12 miles from St. Louis, Missouri and is considered part of that city's Metro-East area. It is the home of the Brooks Catsup Bottle Water Tower, the world's largest ketchup bottle, and is the world's horseradish capital. Monks Mound, the largest man-made earthwork in North America, and now part of the Cahokia Mounds State Historical Site, is located here. . ..

The Cahokia Mounds State Historical Site is located within the city limits of Collinsville. The largest Pre-Columbian settlement north of Mexico, this was one of the first eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites designated within the United States. At its peak about 1200 CE, it had a population of 20,000-30,000, more than any city in the present-day United States until after 1800. It includes Monks Mound, the largest prehistoric earthwork in the Americas, and more than 70 surviving smaller mounds. Monks Mound is larger at its base than the Great Pyramid of Giza. There is a museum and visitors' center.

Selected and edited from Wikipedia

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       1241 hours. This is awesome. We visited a number of ancient sites in Latin America and we have our own ‘Fort Ancient” Native American site about fifteen miles north of us in Warren County. I did not know about these Cahokia Mounds. We’ll have to stop either on the way out or the way back. Most cool.

       Post. - Amorella

Notes - it's a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning

       After dusk. Carol has gone up to bed to read. You spent time updating your Garmin GPS software, maps are already updated, and also you have been putting in addresses for the trip. Earlier Carol picked up material from AAA and you both have begun packing. – Amorella

       2059 hours. We are getting pumped for this trip. Carol has never been to Colorado. I have never been to Colorado Springs. We each had a Whippy Dip today, only the second time this year. We went to the park, sat under a tree and ate them. Earlier we each had two ears of corn on the cob and split a turkey burger from the Kroger’s deli for lunch – then, cereal for supper while we watched NBC and ABC News and more of Bolt’s amazing running ability. I like his personality and character, the public part. I don’t know about anybody’s character really. If Angels or something similar are real I’ll bet they would have some stories to tell. What stories do you have, Amorella? (2110) Sorry. I shouldn’t have been so glib.

       Do not erase. – Amorella

       2114 hours. I wasn’t thinking. The words, “what stories do you have,” just rolled off my fingertips. I apologized because it is habit. I don’t like that I thought ‘so’ before the glib. I was thinking of you as a profane (not sacred) character in my head. I accept you as a personally sacred spiritual-like character in my head and as such I was not being polite and respectful. I don’t have anything else.

       Post. - Amorella

       I like your title, boy. - Amorella