Posts Tagged ‘scale’
“Nothing can better cure the anthropocentrism that is the author of all our ills than to cast ourselves into the physics of the infinitely large (or the infinitely small)”*…
And very eye-opening it can be. Jason Kottke reports on an article in the most recent issue of the American Journal of Physics with the understated title of “All objects and some questions.”
You just have to admire a chart that casually purports to show every single thing in the Universe in one simple 2D plot. [As the article’s author explain:]
In Fig. 2 [above], we plot all the composite objects in the Universe: protons, atoms, life forms, asteroids, moons, planets, stars, galaxies, galaxy clusters, giant voids, and the Universe itself. Humans are represented by a mass of 70 kg and a radius of 50 cm (we assume sphericity), while whales are represented by a mass of 10^5 kg and a radius of 7 m.
The “sub-Planckian unknown” and “forbidden by gravity” sections of the chart makes the “quantum uncertainty” section seem downright normal — the paper collectively calls these “unphysical regions.” Lovely turns of phrase all.
But what does it all mean? My physics is too rusty to say, but I thought one of the authors’ conjectures was particularly intriguing: “Our plot of all objects also seems to suggest that the Universe is a black hole.”…
Is the universe a black hole? (and other provocative propositions): @kottke on a recent scientific paper: “The Plot of All Objects in the Universe.”
* Julio Cortázar, Around the Day in Eighty Worlds
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As we size up scale, we might recall that it was on this date in 451 that a different kind of attempt to reconcile the finite and the infinite began: the first session of the Council of Chalcedon (in modern-day Turkey) was opened. The fourth ecumenical council of the Christian church, it was attended by over 520 bishops or their representatives (making it the largest and best documented of the first seven ecumenical councils). It was convened by the Roman emperor Marcian to re-assert the teachings of the ecumenical Council of Ephesus against the heresies of Eutyches and Nestorius— whose teachings attempted to dismantle and separate Christ’s divine nature from his humanity (Nestorianism) and further, to limit Christ as solely divine in nature (Monophysitism).
The Council succeeded in that task. As Jaroslav Pelikan characterized their findings:
We all teach harmoniously [that he is] the same perfect in godhead, the same perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man, the same of a reasonable soul and body; homoousios with the Father in godhead, and the same homoousios with us in manhood … acknowledged in two natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.
… which marked a turning point in the Christological debates. But it also generated heated disagreements between the council and the Oriental Orthodox Church, which saw things differently– a contention that informed the separation of the Oriental Orthodox Churches from the rest of Christianity… and led to the Council being remembered as “Chalcedon, the Ominous.”
“There is a limit to thinking about even a small piece of something monumental”*…
Still, we can try…
Via Jason Kottke, who is reminded…
of Ben Terrett’s calculation of how many helveticas from here to the Moon and my subsequent calculations about the point size of the Earth and the Moon (50.2 billion and 13.7 billion, respectively).
* Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation
As we size up scale, we might recall that it was on this date (the feast day of St. Mary Magdalene) in 1342, that Central Europe’s worst flood ever occurred. Following the passage of a Genoa low, the rivers Rhine, Moselle, Main, Danube, Weser, Werra, Unstrut, Elbe, Vltava, and their tributaries inundated large areas. Many towns such as Cologne, Mainz, Frankfurt am Main, Würzburg, Regensburg, Passau, and Vienna were seriously damaged, with water levels exceeding those of the 2002 European floods. Even the river Eider north of Hamburg flooded the surrounding land; indeed, the affected area extended to Carinthia and northern Italy.
“Being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing”*…
Maps are crucial– and they’re also often crucially wrong… or at least misleading. Any attempt to reduce our 3-D world in 2-D results in distortion.
It is hard to represent our spherical world on flat piece of paper. Cartographers use something called a “projection” to morph the globe into 2D map. The most popular of these is the Mercator projection.
Every map projection introduces distortion, and each has its own set of problems. One of the most common criticisms of the Mercator map is that it exaggerates the size of countries nearer the poles (US, Russia, Europe), while downplaying the size of those near the equator (the African Continent). On the Mercator projection Greenland appears to be roughly the same size as Africa. In reality, Greenland is 0.8 million sq. miles and Africa is 11.6 million sq. miles, nearly 14 and a half times larger.
This app was created by James Talmage and Damon Maneice. It was inspired by an episode of The West Wing and an infographic by Kai Krause entitled “The True Size of Africa“. We hope teachers will use it to show their students just how big the world actually is…
The world as it actually is: “The True Size,” an interactive tool that let’s one compare the real scale of any two countries.
Apposite: “Animated Map: Where Are the Largest Cities Throughout History?” (with thanks to friend JA)
* Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
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As we muse on measurement, we might recall that it was on this date in 1513 that Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon came ashore and claimed “La Florida” [the “land of flowers”] for Spain. While it has long been accepted that de Leon landed with his three caravels near St. Augustine and became the first European of record to see the peninsula, scholars have recently challenged details of that historical account, suggesting that he actually beached near Melbourne.
In any event, he went on to map the Atlantic coast down to the Florida Keys and north along the Gulf coast; historian John Reed Swanton believed that he sailed perhaps as far as Apalachee Bay on Florida’s western coast. Though popular lore has it that he was searching for the Fountain of Youth, there is no contemporary evidence to support the story, which most modern historians consider a myth.
“The idea that there might be limits to growth is for many people impossible to imagine”*…
Jason Wilson on the Carthusian monks’ decision to limit production of their famed liqueur and what it says about quality and scale in our modern world…
[In January, 2023] a letter from the Carthusian monks in Voiron, France circulated through the world of spirits. It was, in the hackneyed parlance of journalism, a “bombshell.” The letter explains a decision by the monks to limit the production of Charteuse, their famed Alpine liqueur dating to 1605, in order “to focus on their primary goal: protect their monastic life and devote their time to solitude and prayer.”
Apparently this decision had been made quietly in 2021 (quietly being how most decisions are made in a monastic order sworn to a vow of silence). A growing Chartreuse shortage started being noticed by spirits enthusiasts during 2022. The drinks website Punch verified the letter a couple of weeks ago. Chartreuse will now only be sold exclusively under allocation, making it much more difficult to find.
First of all, allow me to applaud this stance by the Carthusian monks. I deeply admire their willingness to say “enough” to the relentless market forces pushing them to produce more, more, more, at all costs. It’s honestly inspiring that the monks refuse to see their earthly purpose as satisfying the demands of some knucklehead mixologist doing his little riff on the Last Word at some lame speakeasy in some third-tier city.
Less but better and for longer. What a refreshing thing to hear in 2023. In nearly every other realm of our soul-crushing age, the focus is to scale everything as big as possible, quality be damned. As someone who operates in a media industry that values an endless stream of cheap, SEO-driven clickbait over well-written, thoughtful content that costs effort and money to produce, I stand with the monks…
“Where Has All the Chartreuse Gone?” from @boozecolumnist.
* Donella Meadows
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As we find balance, we might recall that it was on this date in 1915 that Absinthe is outlawed in France and several other countries.
Absinthe was a licorice/anise flavored liqueur that contained wormwood, and was 132 proof. The high alcohol content, and the presence of the toxic oil thujone from the wormwood, seemed to cause hallucinations, convulsions, and severe mental problems amongst hard core absinthe drinkers.
In response to the ban, Henry-Louis Pernod, who manufactured Absinthe, came out with the lower alcohol, wormwood free liqueur ‘Pernod’, to replace Absinthe… though Absinthe sales were subsequently reinstated in the E.U.
“Space is to place as eternity is to time”*…
Josh Worth (@misterjworth), with a mesmerizing interactive reminder that space is vast: “If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel.”
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As we scrutinize scale, we might recall that it was on this date in 1988 that NASA, undaunted by distance, launched the Space Shuttle Discovery (which had been out of service for three years), marking America’s return to manned space flight following the Challenger disaster. By its last mission in 2011, Discovery had flown 149 million miles in 39 missions, completed 5,830 orbits, and spent 365 days in orbit over 27 years.
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