Feb. 29, 45 B.C.: Julius Caesar Takes the Leap

From the wired.com article:
45 B.C.: Roman dictator-for-life Julius Caesar, alarmed that the calendar is growing out of whack with the seasons, adds an extra day to the month of February every four years.

Caesar was reforming a calendar based on 364 days, with an occasional extra leap month. But the Roman religious officials in charge of minding the calendar had been asleep at the switch, chronologically speaking. Caesar consulted with Egypt’s top astronomers, who told him the year was 365¼ days long. While he was making the fix, Julius also decided to give his name to the month of July.

Although Caesar decreed the new calendar in 46 B.C., that year had 15 months to make up for the accumulated discrepancy. The first add-a-day leap year was 45 B.C.

The new Julian leap day wasn’t added at the end of February originally, but on the day preceding the 6th of the calends of March. The Romans didn’t count the days of the months from 1 on up, but used an idiosyncratic system of calends, nons and ides — and we all know what happened to ol’ J.C. on the ides of March, 44 B.C.

Read the rest of the article here.

The Blue Eye Map of Europe

If you ever wondered “where are people in Europe with blue eyes most concentrated?”, this map is for you.

Also see “The Blonde Map of Europe” here.

I originally saw the “The Blonde Map of Europe” here.

Also, here is an interesting article about the decline of blue eyes in America.

Teens losing touch with common cultural and historical references

From the usatoday.com article:
Big Brother. McCarthyism. The patience of Job.

Don’t count on your typical teenager to nod knowingly the next time you drop a reference to any of these. A study out today finds that about half of 17-year-olds can’t identify the books or historical events associated with them.

Twenty-five years after the federal report A Nation at Risk challenged U.S. public schools to raise the quality of education, the study finds high schoolers still lack important historical and cultural underpinnings of “a complete education.” And, its authors fear, the nation’s current focus on improving basic reading and math skills in elementary school might only make matters worse, giving short shrift to the humanities even if children can read and do math.

“If you think it matters whether or not kids have common historical touchstones and whether, at some level, we feel like members of a common culture, then familiarity with this knowledge matters a lot,” says American Enterprise Institute researcher Rick Hess, who wrote the study.

Among 1,200 students surveyed:

•43% knew the Civil War was fought between 1850 and 1900.

•52% could identify the theme of 1984.

•51% knew that the controversy surrounding Sen. Joseph McCarthy focused on communism.

In all, students earned a C in history and an F in literature, though the survey suggests students do well on topics schools cover. For instance, 88% knew the bombing of Pearl Harbor led the USA into World War II, and 97% could identify Martin Luther King Jr. as author of the “I Have a Dream” speech.

Read the article here.

Titan’s surface organics surpass oil reserves on Earth

From the esa.int article:
Saturn’s orange moon Titan has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth, according to new Cassini data. The hydrocarbons rain from the sky, collecting in vast deposits that form lakes and dunes.
 
The new findings from the study led by Ralph Lorenz, Cassini radar team member from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, USA, are reported in the 29 January 2008 issue of the Geophysical Research Letters.

“Titan is just covered in carbon-bearing material—it’s a giant factory of organic chemicals,” said Lorenz. “This vast carbon inventory is an important window into the geology and climate history of Titan.”

At a balmy minus 179º C , Titan is a far cry from Earth. Instead of water, liquid hydrocarbons in the form of methane and ethane are present on the moon’s surface, and tholins probably make up its dunes. The term ‘tholins’ was coined by Carl Sagan in 1979 to describe the complex organic molecules at the heart of prebiotic chemistry.

Read the article here.

Physicist Neil Turok: Big Bang Wasn’t the Beginning

Read the article here.

You cant judge a person by one measly article, but if I had to judge Turolk by this one I would say he is a typical dead weight thinker. First of all, like most Physicists, his explanation of “no beginning” is lame. Physicists seem to always avoid making any definitive statements on these key issues. It is much the same when they are asked if the universe has an end and if so what’s beyond that. Basically they don’t know, but they sure have a lot of bullshit they like to throw out. It would be more refreshing to hear one of them say “we don’t know”.

Second, when he says, “most physicists prefer that there was not a creation event, because there are no laws of physics that indicate how time could begin” it’s as if he instantly stops being a scientist and wants the data to conform to theory. Isn’t it the job of a scientist to find answers and not to seek solutions that fit their theory no matter how doctrinal and imbedded the foundation that theory is based on might be? Who cares that the prescribed canon works for everything up to a beginning point, what have you done for me lately?

Thirdly he says “I don’t see science as relevant to the question of whether or not there’s a God” and also “Science studies how the world operates, not why it’s here.”  I shouldn’t even have to point out how impotent that statement is. He seems to be so tightly bound to an atheistic scientific view that he can’t imagine science (or the end result of science) and god might be the same thing, especially when seeking singularity.

Fourthly, he seems to reject beauty, structure and meaning in nature when asked “To many people, science is valuable because of the metaphors it gives us — a poetry of the natural world” and then he responds, “We need poetry as well as science, but it’s completely irrelevant to the science. That doesn’t motivate me either.” Man, this guy seems to take nothing else from any other part of the creative world and see any kind of connection what so ever, he seems like the ultimate numbers nerd, very short sighted even with his new anti big bang theory. I would put money down that a more well rounded man will come up with bigger more unique and yet plausible theories. Think ancient Greeks.

I hope that eventually it is discovered that our physics is not the physics of the entire universe, to see this guy squirm would be priceless. Don’t get me wrong, I think physicists work is important but it is almost painful to read this article and to not be disappointed that Turolk seems so one-dimensional. Western thinkers are shriveling up and if Turolk is a light of Western thought there would be no better proof.

Viewer’s Guide: Total Lunar Eclipse Feb. 20

From the space.com article:
On Wednesday night, Feb. 20, for the third time in the past year, the moon will become completely immersed in the Earth’s shadow, resulting in a total lunar eclipse.

As is the case with all lunar eclipses, the region of visibility will encompass more than half of our planet. Nearly a billion people in the Western Hemisphere, more than 1.5 billion in Europe and Africa, and perhaps another half-billion in western Asia will be able to watch — weather permitting — as the brilliant mid-winter full moon becomes a shadow of its former self and morphs into a glowing coppery ball.

Almost everyone in the Americas and Western Europe will have a beautiful view of this eclipse if bad weather doesn’t spoil the show. The moon will be high in a dark evening sky as viewed from most of the United States and Canada while most people are still awake and about.

Read the article here.

Machines to match man by 2029

From the bbc.co.uk article:
Machines will achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029, a leading US inventor has predicted.

Humanity is on the brink of advances that will see tiny robots implanted in people’s brains to make them more intelligent, said Ray Kurzweil.

The engineer believes machines and humans will eventually merge through devices implanted in the body to boost intelligence and health.

“It’s really part of our civilisation,” Mr Kurzweil explained.

“But that’s not going to be an alien invasion of intelligent machines to displace us.”

Machines were already doing hundreds of things humans used to do, at human levels of intelligence or better, in many different areas, he said.

Read the article here.

The History of Car Logos

If you have any interest in cars you will want to read this over, it describes the history of car logos and their meaning from Abarth to Volvo. Click on the logo and see a higher resolution version. One of the more interesting being Alfa Romeo.

I found this on jalopnik.com

Pachelbel Rant

Johann Pachelbel

Canon in D major

Official Mascot